Although Samsung saw its profits slide for the sixth straight quarter, investors are hoping for a better showing in sales this year. Sales due to newly designed, recently launched flagship smartphones, like the Galaxy S6, and Galaxy S6 Edge. Stock prices achieved a 21 month high in the middle of March as brokerage houses raised profit forecast due to Samsung’s continually improving business outlook. According to Reuters, Samsung stock rose by 8.6% in the first quarter of this year, and in the prior quarter, from October to December of 2014 the stock rose by 12.1%. Investors believe that when the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge begin sales later this month, that sales will be brisk. The positive reviews that have been given before the launch thus far have analysts betting on increasing sales from Samsung’s upcoming midrange smartphones as well. This would be a good sign that its profit slide will soon be coming to an end.
The semiconductor side of the electronic giant is also expected to be a large source of the recovery, along with the heavier than usual demand for the Exynos processor now that all Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge phones sold worldwide are now using it instead of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor. Nvidia has also recently contracted with Samsung for manufacturing.
The recovery forecasted for Samsung is expected to take a while to achieve. Profits are sure to be well shy of the record profits had in 2013. Reuters, in their report, estimated a profit of $4.82 Billion, still down 38 percent from the same time one year ago. Samsung will be releasing first quarter earnings on Tuesday, but analysis indicates no matter what those figures happen to be, expect the momentum to increase once the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge hit the market. An analyst from BNP Paribas, Peter Yu, expects Samsung to ship about 44 million of the new phones this year, compared with an estimated 38 million units of the Galaxy S5 last year, a model that many consumers found disappointing. Yu also estimated to clients last week that there was possibly a $1.5 billion upside in his profit forecast of 28.1 trillion won, which depending on current exchange rates is about $38 billion. The upside, because of the new smartphones.