Samsung misses analyst estimates, reports $7.1 billion in operating profit for Q2

After warning earlier this month that Q2 didn’t “look too good,” Samsung today released its earnings preview for the second quarter of 2014. The South Korean company reported an operating profit of $7.1 billion (7.2 trillion won), missing analyst estimates of $8 billion (8.1 trillion won). This comes out to a 24 percent drop year over year (via Bloomberg).

The mobile/telecommunications unit of Samsung anticipates an operating profit of 5.1 trillion won on sales of 31 trillion won. Samsung says that it hopes to improve its earnings this quarter with a limited impact from a stronger won. For Q2, Samsung blamed its weak performance on the Korean won’s appreciation against the U.S. dollar and the euro.

In terms of smartphone shipments, Samsung shipped 78 million units in Q2, as opposed to the 87.5 million units it shipped in Q1. Many analysts believe that the slide in shipments is due in large part to Samsung’s in ability to “differentiate” its products from Chinese rivals like Xiaomi and Lenovo. This, of course, is in addition to Apple stealing higher-end customers, as well. For Q2, Samsung also said that sales of its medium and low-end smartphones were weak due to increasing competition.

Samsung does, however, note that its Galaxy S5 flagship is selling faster than any smartphone it has ever released, absorbing sales of 10 million units within the first 25 days. Apple is set to report its Q3 earnings on July 22nd.