Samsung Electronics is all set to end Intel's over two decade-long reign as the best of silicon-based semiconductor, as it reported record-high quarterly profit and sales. Analysts said it likely nudged aside the company in the April-June quarter as the leading marker of semiconductors, the computer chips that are as much a staple of the 21st century wired world as crude oil was for the 20th century. Samsung said its semi-conductor business recorded 8 trillion in operating income on revenue of 17.6 trillion won during the April-June period.
Marcello Ahn, a South Korea-based fund manager at Quad Investment Management said, “Data is the new crude oil.” Samsung and Intel ruled the market in its own category of semi-conductor for over a decade.
Mobile devices and data are the keys to understanding Samsung's ascent as the new industry leader, even as its de facto chief is jailed, battling corruption charges, and it recovers from a fiasco over Galaxy Note 7 smartphones that had to be axed last year because they were prone to catch fire. Manufacturers are packing more and more memory storage capacity into ever smaller mobile gadgets, as increased use of mobile applications, connected devices and cloud computing services drive up demand and consequently prices for memory chips, an area dominated by Samsung.
