Samsung continues to struggle

SAMSUNG Electronics faces a challenging outlook after reporting its third consecutive fall in quarterly profit as it struggles to make ground on Apple Inc and deal with a tepid recovery in its TV and flat-screens business.

The world’s second-largest mobile-phone handset maker, however, said its mainstay memory-chip business was rebounding after Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami in March hobbled production from rivals, including Toshiba Corp.

Samsung’s Galaxy model smartphones and tablet computers were seen among the biggest potential rivals to Apple’s iPhone and iPad, but it has been unable to match the US company’s roaring sales growth.

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Sony plans to soon join the fray with the launch of its first tablets in a market set to quadruple in four years.

Samsung is also the world’s largest top maker of memory chips, flat screens and televisions.

After hitting life-time highs in late January, Samsung shares have lost 12 per cent, as analysts lower expectations for its telecoms division, which includes smartphones and tablets.

Samsung reported a 2.95 trillion won (£1.65bn) operating profit for January-March. That was in line with Samsung’s estimate for an operating profit of between 2.7 trillion won and 3.1 trillion won.

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Samsung, which had negligible share of the smartphone market until early last year, has muscled in with its Galaxy models. It has since sold 14m Galaxy S smartphones and launched the Galaxy Tab tablet in three different sizes.

This week, it rolled out a new version of its flagship Galaxy S smartphone in Korea and expects the model to sell more than 10m units as the product makes a global debut from May.

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