By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff reporter
Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest memory chipmaker, fears that instability in the Euro zone is likely to have a lasting impact on investors and consumer sentiment in the global memory chip market.
Analysts agree with the company saying that any difficulties could arise next year.
At the moment, Samsung's top executives says his company "is closely watching the market."
"Samsung Electronics is closely watching European financial markets in case the situation worsens more than expected," said Kwon Oh-hyun, a president of the company's semiconductor business.
"Certainly, we can't make a firm prediction, I have asked chief executives of overseas chipmakers on this issue," Kwon told reporters during his participation in the global semiconductor forum held in the Shilla Hotel.
Samsung has enjoyed good business this year thanks to a global recovery making Kwon's remarks the first time that a Samsung leader has been less than optimistic about the market situation.
Kwon, however, said Samsung will see a record profit in the second quarter as demand for memory chips is still strong thanks to the rising popularity of chip-embedded consumer gadgets such as PCs.
Kwon, who downplayed market worries over the sector's possible oversupply in the latter half of this year, added its semiconductor business will peak in terms of profit in the third quarter of 2010.
"The second quarter will be much better than the first quarter. It is highly unlikely that the sector will see oversupply in the second half of the year. The market is a seller's market and the trend will continue throughout this year," he said.
"We are quite sure that the sector will continue the current bullish moves for the full year."
Samsung has recently revised up its spending on chip facilities to 11 trillion won ($10 billion) for this year as an effort to widen the market gap with its bigger overseas rivals, including Toshiba of Japan.