Samsung has manufactured more smartphones and tablets than it itself forecasted for the first quarter of this year.
According to a report on TheElec, citing unnamed sources, it said that the South Korean tech giant manufactured 64.5 million units of smartphones and tablets during the quarter – 22 per cent higher than it initially targeted at the year’s start.
Samsung had previously aimed to manufacture 53 million units, excluding those manufactured by its contract suppliers such as Wingtech.
Samsung is aiming to ship 253 million units of smartphones this year, with 51 million units of them being Galaxy S series and foldables.
The success of the AI-equipped Galaxy S24 series and a growth in sales of its budget model in India are believed to have contributed to the spike in production.
It is also believed to be ramping up production to have enough inventory of conventional smartphones before the launch of its foldable smartphones.
The increase in production has required the factory operation rate to increase proportionally at Samsung Display, which supplies OLED panels for Samsung smartphones and tablets.
Samsung Display’s A2 line, which manufactures rigid OLED panels for the Galaxy A series, currently has an operation rate of up to 80 per cent.
However, production can be hit this quarter as Samsung struggles to manage a dispute with its employee unions in South Korea which have begun to strike.
Samsung employs around 124,800 in the country and following a recent breakdown in negotiation regarding pay hikes, five Samsung Electronics unions have pledged to strike.
Earlier this week, over 2,000 members of a Samsung Electronics labour union staged a rally to pressure Samsung into meeting its demands to improve their working conditions and enhance wages. The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU), which represents 26,000 employees, or 21 per cent of company’s workforce, who staged the rally has union members mainly from the company’s semiconductor division.
Still, Samsung Electronics posted a healthy Q1 2024 preliminary operating profit of about 6.6 trillion won (approx. A$7.4 billion). Those figures marks its first quarterly profit after successive quarterly declines starting Q3 2022.
