Samsung has announced a huge loss of $3.4 billion from its memory chip division for Q1 2023

According to Bloomberg, the losses resulted from falling demand and high inventories, as PC and smartphone makers stockpiled chips during the pandemic but were then left with large inventory excesses as demand dropped off.

This loss at its unit contributed to Samsung’s quarterly operating profit plummeting by 95 percent to $478 million.

Samsung hopes that the chip business will start to pick up in the second half of this year, as existing inventories are expected to have run down and new launches will spur demand.

Meanwhile, profit at Samsung’s smartphone division rose by 3 percent to $2.9 billion versus the previous year, despite revenue dropping by 2 percent to $22.9 billion.