Samsung profit slides, but smartphones strong

From CNET News.com: Samsung's revenue was up during the second quarter, but the company wasn't able to stem its decline in net income.

During the period that ended June 30, the electronics maker generated revenue of 39.44 trillion Korean won ($37.4 billion), up 4 percent compared to the same period last year. However, the company's second-quarter profit of 3.51 trillion won ($3.3 billion) was off 18 percent compared with 2010.

According to Samsung, its mobile business helped drive higher revenue during the quarter. The company said today that mobile sales were up 43 percent year over year, "due to strong demand for Samsung's Galaxy S II smartphone and other mobile devices."

The Galaxy S II, which launched in Asia in late April, has been catching on with consumers. Just yesterday, Samsung said that it sold 5 million units of the handset in just the first 85 days it was on store shelves. Even better for the company, the device, which has a dual-core 1.2GHz processor and 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, hasn't even launched in the U.S. yet.

Samsung failed to provide mobile-device shipment figures on its entire product line, but it did say today that gains were "in the high-single-digit range quarter-on-quarter." The company also pointed out that the average sales price of its smartphones increased by over 10 percent during the period.

All of the company's success in the mobile market is prompting some to wonder how long it might take before Samsung trumps Apple in overall sales. Speaking to Bloomberg recently, Strategy Analytics analyst Neil Mawston said that he believes Samsung's second-quarter handset sales reached between 18 million and 21 million. For its part, Apple sold 20.3 million iPhones during the same three-month period.

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