Investors desert South Korean maker for fear things can only get worse
More than $12 billion was wiped off the value of Samsung in early trading in Asia today [27th August 2012] as the ramifications of Apple’s Californian court victory sank in.
On Friday US jurors delivered a sweeping victory to Apple in its battle with the South Korean giant, ordering it to pay US$1.05 billion dollars in damages for violating its patents on smartphone technology. More critically, Samsung could now be forced to stop selling handsets in the US that are deemed to violate those patents.
At 2am GMT Samsung’s shares were down more than 7.6 per cent, wiping 12.7 trillion won (US$11.2 billion) off the company’s cap.
It’s meteoric plunge in value could ultimately have an impact on South Korea itself, given that it produces around a fifth of the nation’s total exports and that its revenues, until now, have been larger than many countries’ GDP.
On Asian trading early today much of the selling of Samsung shares was from local brokers, soon followed by foreign brokers. Foreign investors hold about half of Samsung shares.
One analyst, Song Myung-sup of Hi Investment & Securities said: “The context of the loss in this case is a lot worse than had been expected.”
Although a US sales ban on Samsung smartphones is still subject to appeal, he added that if that failed then the Korean manufacturer’s revenues could really start to feel the pinch from the fourth trading quarter on – coinciding, as it does, with the vital Christmas selling season.
Another concern is whether the patent battle will spread to Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S III phone. Friday’s court verdict alluded only to patent infringements on older Samsung’s handsets.
Share prices of HTC and other Asian makers of smartphones running Google’s Android op, which was another part of Apple’s lawsuit, were also badly hit Monday morning.
A key beneficiary of the US court decision could be struggling Finnish maker Nokia and others using the non-disputed Microsoft Windows OS. Ironically, Nokia used to be the world’s largest phone maker by unit sales – before it was overtaken by Samsung.
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق