Samsung says the Galaxy S10 is selling better than the company's dim profit suggests

Samsung Electronics warned investors that it would make much less money in the quarter, and of course, the company reported revenue from the first quarter showing that the profit went 60 percent compared to last year, from 15.64 trillion Won (about $ 13.4 billion) to just 6.2 billion won (about $ 5.3 billion).

But unlike Google earlier today, the company doesn't owe its expensive phones for anything whatsoever – Samsung says the Galaxy S10 series actually sold well, and the company delivered 78 million phones in total (in addition to 5 million tablets) in the quarter and that some weakness in phones can be explained by its low and medium models, which cannibalize sales for last year's Galaxy models. (Much of Samsung's new phone strategy brings warm features to its mid-range phones, such as the new A-series.)

Samsung expects to send a little more phones next quarter as well.

Instead, the reasons for the decline were largely the same as the previous quarter: falling demand for memory cards, Samsung's true bread and butter, as well as reduced demand for screens. The company says it will improve in the second half of the year, with increased demand for flash memory on servers, as well as smartphones with 256 GB of storage and up, and the company says it actually sends multiple processors and modems even as demand for its image sensors slows down. latest because of "weak smartphone seasonality".

Samsung did not first mention its besieged Galaxy Fold collapsible smartphone on the earnings call, but answered one question about the phone by saying that the company would announce an updated launch plan "over the next few weeks." It is possible that the date will be in the second half of the year, depending on how you interpret this paragraph in its press release (bolding ours):

For the second half despite increased market competition, Samsung expects that smart phone sales will increase the lead of new models in all segments from the Galaxy A series to the Galaxy Note in the midst of strong seasonality. In the premium segment, the company will strengthen its leadership through the new Galaxy Note, as well as the innovative products such as 5G and collapsible smartphones.

More generally, the company predicts that increased demand for flexible displays can help its display business due to some unspecified "new smartphone launches", but also that demand for flexible displays may be "soft" for now. The company's display business is banking on other, non-flexible smartphone screens to help the division "rebound."

Here is the company's wear decks if you want to read the proceeds further.