Samsung made record revenue despite decline in mobile profit

Samsung has revealed its Q3 2017 earnings for this year, showing that the company saw an 89% jump in net profit from the same quarter last year. Samsung’s net profit jumped from $4.05 billion during the June through September quarter in 2016 up to $10 billion in the same period of this year. That’s an amazing amount of growth, but it’s mostly due to Samsung’s semiconductor business.

Despite an increase in premium smartphone shipments like the Galaxy Note 8, overall revenue and earnings for Samsung’s Mobile division saw an 18.9% decrease in revenue this quarter compared to the same quarter last year. Samsung attributes this mostly to the growth in sales of mid and low tier smartphone models, which don’t have the same profit margins as premium devices.

Another loser on Samsung’s balance sheet this quarter is its display panel division, which saw an earnings decline despite more smartphones debuting with OLED Samsung panels. Samsung also attributes the cost of its new OLED panel production line for the decrease in revenue from its OLED division for this quarter.