Technology

Samsung flags uncertain economic climate after smartphone, chip sales power quarterly results beat

Published

7 months ago

April 30, 2025

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Photo illustration showing the Samsung Group company logo displayed on a smartphone screen.

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Samsung Electronics‘ operating profit and revenue beat analysts’ estimates Wednesday, as sales of its flagship Galaxy S25 smartphones as well as memory chips rose.

The South Korean company posted a record quarterly revenue, up 10% from a year earlier, while its first-quarter operating profit climbed 1.5%.

Here are Samsung’s first-quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate:

Revenue: 79.1 trillion Korean won ($55.4 billion) vs. 78.1 trillion Korean won
Operating profit: 6.7 trillion Korean won vs. 6.4 trillion Korean won

First-quarter revenue marginally topped Samsung’s forecast of 79 trillion Korean won, while operating profit also came in higher than the company’s expectations of 6.6 trillion Korean won.

Samsung is a leading manufacturer of memory chips, which are utilized in devices such as laptops and servers, and is also the world’s second-largest smartphone maker.

The company flagged macroeconomic uncertainties due to trade tensions and a slowdown in global growth. Samsung expects performance to improve in the second half of the year, “assuming that the uncertainties are diminished.”

South Korea-listed shares of Samsung Electronics were trading down about 0.4%.

Memory business

Samsung Electronics’ chip business posted an operating profit of 1.1 trillion Korean won in the first quarter, down from the previous quarter and the same period last year, though revenue rose year on year.

“For the Memory Business, revenue was driven by expanded server DRAM sales and the addressing of additional NAND demand amid a perceived bottoming out of the market price,” the company said.

DRAM and NAND are types of semiconductor memory found in PCs, workstations and servers. Demand for such memory chips has surged on the back of the artificial intelligence boom.

However, overall earnings were impacted by a decrease in average selling prices and sales impacted by U.S. export controls on AI chips, Samsung said.

Long a leader in memory chips, Samsung has recently been falling behind its local competitor, SK Hynix, which has been better positioned to benefit from AI development.

A report from Counterpoint Research earlier this month said that SK Hynix had overtaken Samsung in overall DRAM market revenue for the first time, with a 36% global market share as compared to Samsung’s 34%.

The report added that this had resulted, in part, from SK Hynix’s dominance in high bandwidth memory or HBM — a type of DRAM used in artificial intelligence servers in which chips are vertically stacked to save space and reduce power consumption.

SK Hynix last week topped quarterly revenue and operating profit estimates on strong demand for its high bandwidth memory offerings.

In its first quarter earnings, Samsung said it experienced deferred HBM demand from customers anticipating the rollout of its latest HBM products.

For the current quarter, Samsung anticipates continued strong demand for AI servers and will seek to strengthen its position in high-value-added products, including HBM.

Smartphones

Samsung’s mobile experience and networks businesses, tasked with developing and selling smartphones, tablets, wearables and other devices, reported a increase in sales and profit from the prior year and quarter.

The company credited the growth to the launch of its latest Galaxy S25 smartphone series, which includes AI features.

In the current quarter, the company plans to sustain sales through the launch of a new Galaxy S25 Edge smartphone and said it will continue to expand the AI-powered features offered on its smartphone lineup.

Correction: This story has been revised to reflect that operating profit in the chip segment declined both on a quarter-on-quarter as well as year-on-year basis.

Technology

Tesla obtains permit to operate ride-hail service in Arizona

Published

5 hours ago

November 19, 2025

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Tesla obtains permit to operate ride-hail service in Arizona

A Tesla Inc. robotaxi on Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, on June 22, 2025.

Tim Goessman | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Tesla has obtained a permit to operate a ride-hailing service in Arizona, the state’s department of transportation said.

The electric vehicle company applied for a “transportation network company” permit on Nov. 13, and was approved on Monday, ADOT said in an emailed statement. Additional permits will be required before Tesla can operate a robotaxi service in Arizona.

In July, Tesla applied to conduct autonomous vehicle testing and operations in Phoenix, with and without human safety drivers on board. A month earlier, Tesla started a robotaxi pilot in Austin, Texas, with safety valets and remote operators. Tesla also operates a more traditional car service in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tesla plans to take human safety drivers out of its cars in Austin before the end of this year. The company is aiming to operate a commercial robotaxi service in Phoenix and several other U.S. cities before the end of 2026.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website, Tesla cars equipped with automated driving systems were involved in seven reported collisions following the launch of the company’s pilot in Texas.

Competitors including Alphabet’s Waymo in the U.S. and Baidu’s Apollo Go in China are way ahead in the nascent robotaxi ride-hailing market. In the Phoenix area, Waymo operates a sizable commercial business, with at least 400 autonomous vehicles, the company previously told CNBC. In May, Waymo said it had surpassed 10 million driverless trips served to riders across the U.S.

Baidu said in an earnings update on Tuesday that its Apollo Go service “provided 3.1 million fully driverless operational rides in the third quarter of 2025,” representing year-over-year growth of 212%.

Musk has been promising that Tesla will “solve” autonomy for years without reaching its goals. The world’s richest person has continued with the lofty pronouncements.

At the company’s 2025 shareholder meeting earlier this month, Musk said the “killer app” for self-driving technology is when people can “text and drive,” or “sleep and drive.”

“Before we allow the car to be driven without paying attention, we need to make sure it’s very safe,” Musk said. “We’re on the cusp of that. I know I’ve said that a few times. We really are at this point.”

WATCH: Baidu to ramp up global exports as robotaxi service grows in China

Technology

CNBC Daily Open: The flow of money in AI appears one-way at this point

Published

8 hours ago

November 19, 2025

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CNBC Daily Open: The flow of money in AI appears one-way at this point

The Anthropic website on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025.

Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Money keeps flowing into artificial intelligence companies but out of AI stocks.

In what looks like — once again — a scenario of the left hand scratching the right, Microsoft and Nvidia will be investing a combined $15 billion into Anthropic, while the OpenAI competitor has committed to buying compute power from its two newest stakeholders. At this point, it seems as if a big proportion of AI news can be summarized as: “Company X invests in Company Y, and Company Y will buy things from Company X.”

Okay, that’s unfair. There are a lot of developments in the AI world that are not about investments but, well, development. Google unveiled the third version of Gemini, its AI model, which Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s AI unit DeepMind, said “will be “trading cliché and flattery for genuine insight.” (But I still want an AI chatbot to compliment me on my curiosity when I ask how to cut a pear, so I’m not sure if that’s a pro for me.)

Investors, however, still appear skeptical about AI. Major names such as Nvidia, Amazon and Microsoft tumbled Tuesday stateside, giving the S&P 500 its fourth straight session in the red — the longest decline since August.

And if Nvidia — “the top company within the top industry within the top sector,” as CFRA’s chief investment strategist Sam Stovall puts it — fails to satisfy investors’ expectations when it reports earnings Wednesday, we might be seeing the S&P 500’s slide extend.

What you need to know today

The S&P 500 falls for a fourth consecutive day. Other major indexes also moved lower Tuesday stateside, while bitcoin prices dropped below $90,000 before recovering. Europe’s regional Stoxx 600 sank 1.72% and touched its lowest level in a month.

Anthropic signs deal with Microsoft and Nvidia. Microsoft announced Tuesday it will invest up to $5 billion in the startup, while Nvidia will put in up to $10 billion. That puts Anthropic’s valuation around $350 billion, according to a source.

Google announces its latest AI model Gemini 3. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Tuesday it will require “less prompting” for desired answers. The update comes eight months after Google introduced Gemini 2.5, and will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

U.S. Senators urge investigation into Trump-linked crypto firm. World Liberty Finance, heavily owned and run by the Trump family, sold tokens to a North Korean hacking organization, an Iranian crypto exchange and others, according to a corporate watchdog.

[PRO] Potentially resilient stocks amid AI slump. There are some global stocks and non-equity assets that could weather the turbulence in U.S. tech names happening recently, strategists told CNBC.

And finally…

Oleksii Liskonih | Istock | Getty Images

Diplomatic spat between Tokyo and Beijing threatens Japan’s already fragile economy

Miffed over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments related to Taiwan, China on Friday advised its citizens against travelling to the country. Japanese tourism-exposed stocks fell in the aftermath of that warning, while experts caution the impact could be more severe over a longer duration.

Takahide Kiuchi, executive economist at Nomura Research Institute, said tensions between the two Asian powers could result in a 1.79 trillion yen drop in Japan’s GDP over the course of one year — a 0.29% decline in the country’s GDP.

— Lim Hui Jie