By Joel Hruska - Extremetech, Oct. 07, 2015 –
Samsung's semiconductor division has announced preliminary results ahead of its formal Q3 earnings call. 2015 has been a rough year for Samsung, overall, but the semiconductor unit's performance should blunt those losses. Samsung claims to have earned an operating profit of $6.3 billion on semiconductor sales in Q3, up substantially from the $3.55 billion operating profit that it posted for the same quarter in 2014.
The vastly improved results were driven by two factors: favorable exchange rates and higher overall shipments. Samsung sold roughly 8% more volume this year compared to last, and its ASPs may have also improved, buoyed by the launch of the Galaxy Note 5 and the Apple iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. It shares the latter hardware with TSMC; Apple opted to dual-source its production last year after years of relying on a single vendor (usually Samsung) for its chip launches.