Samsung Electronics is on track to report record annual earnings, despite its de-facto boss going on trial in a political corruption scandal.<\/p>\n
It is forecasting a 48 percent rise in profits in the January-to-March period, thanks to strong memory chip sales.<\/p>\n
That would be its best quarterly profit in almost four years and shows a recovery from the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco.<\/p>\n
The estimates are not too shabby given the corruption allegations and the embarrassment of exploding phones.<\/p>\n
The forecast $8.8billion profits don\u2019t include what the company is hoping to make from its new phone, the new and improved Galaxy 8, which hits the shelves later this month.<\/p>\n
Analysts are saying Samsung\u2019s second quarter results should even be better than the first quarter, because of the hype surrounding the Galaxy 8 and the artificial intelligence technology, called Bixby, embedded in it.<\/p>\n
Samsung\u2019s share price has also been performing well, climbing steadily over the last few months despite all the drama the company has been facing at home.<\/p>\n
In fact, on the whole South Korea\u2019s stock market has been doing pretty well, with foreign funds pumping in $3bn.<\/p>\n
After the recent political crisis – which saw the president removed from office and facing possible a corruption trial herself – there are hopes that whoever replaces her will push for real reform in the biggest conglomerates, known as chaebols.<\/p>\n
But how realistic are those reforms in a country where the top 10 chaebols own more than a quarter of all business assets?<\/p>\n
Samsung\u2019s sales alone make up a fifth of South Korea\u2019s GDP, and for many young Korean graduates getting a job in a chaebol is the most desirable outcome after years of toiling through a rigorous education system.<\/p>\n
In the run-up to the presidential elections in May, candidates have made chaebol reform a major pillar of their campaign promises.<\/p>\n
But unpicking the complex and powerful hold these family-run firms have over the South Korean economy will take more than just rhetoric.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Samsung Electronics is on track to report record annual earnings, despite its de-facto boss going on trial in a political corruption scandal. It is forecasting a 48 percent rise in profits in the January-to-March period, thanks to strong memory chip sales. That would be its best quarterly profit in almost four years and shows a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":44157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44158,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44153\/revisions\/44158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}