Samsung’s (KRX:005930) most recent earnings report was abysmal, and now the company is looking inwards to try and pinpoint the exact reason why this may be. While all divisions of Samsung performed poorly during the last quarter, according to two reports from Korea Samsung has begun an internal review of Samsung Display to try and pinpoint why the spun-off arm of Samsung is performing so poorly.
Details from the reports are sparse. According to the Korea Joongang Daily, management would like to find a name responsible for the poor performance. The publication also notes that after the audit is over, reshuffling and a restructuring will likely take place. Korea’s ETNews adds that the audit is expected to last for two months, and the internal atmosphere within the company is “unsettled.”
Samsung Display has had a rough go of it over the last year. During Samsung’s earnings report last week, the division posted a slim operating profit of $56 million down 93% from the same time last year. In the first quarter of the year the division posted a loss of $73,000.
Samsung Display was spun off from its parent company in 2012 through the merger of Samsung’s liquid crystal display business and Samsung’s Mobile Display arm. It remains wholly owned by Samsung. Samsung Display’s showcase technology has been AMOLED, however the company has struggled to make it profitable even admitting that it can’t drum up interest amongst its regular clients for its active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) technology, which is why you don’t see it used in non-Samsung devices.
“Currently, the problem is that we have nowhere else to sell our products besides Samsung Electronics’ mobile division,” Samsung Display CEO Park Dong-geun said to CNET in July.
To further Samsung’s OLED blues, the head of Samsung’s Television division has been recently quoted as saying the “strategy on OLED TV this year as well as next year remains unchanged,” which roughly translates into no OLED TVs at next year’s CES. Instead Samsung will focus on something called Quantum Dot display technology.
While Samsung Display has been struggling, rival LG Display (KRX: 034220) has seen profits rise nearly 20% year-over-year.
