Samsung shareholders approve $1B printing business sale to HP as company reports 30% YoY profit drop

Samsung announced its Q3 2016 earnings yesterday, and they were pretty much as expected. The Korean tech titan confirmed revenue of 47.82 trillion Korean won ($41.8 billion), with operating profits hitting 5.2 trillion Korean won (around $4.6 billion). This represents a year-on-year (YoY) drop of 3.87 trillion won ($3.4 billion) and 2.19 trillion won ($3.4 billion), respectively, and equates to a YoY fall of 34 percent.

The figures are pretty much in line with the revised earnings forecast Samsung issued a couple of weeks back, shortly after confirming it was killing its flagship Galaxy Note7 smartphone due to a recurring issue with handsets catching fire. The Note7 disaster led to the Korean tech titan cutting its original earnings forecast for the quarter by a third, with the company’s stock falling by 7.5 percent.

But following the Q3 earnings announcement yesterday, Samsung held an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders, as scheduled, seeking shareholder approval for two key decisions.

Last month, Samsung announced that it planned to divest its printing business to HP for around $1 billion, and shareholders have now given their approval ahead of the planned spin-off on November 1, according to the Korea Herald. “The decision was made in the context of Samsung Electronics’ commitment to an on-going reorganization of business units in order to further concentrate on core competencies and to maximize competitiveness,” said Samsung CEO Oh-Hyun Kwon, in a statement. “Going forward, the Company will continue along this path of focusing on what it does best.”

Samsung’s push to give its vice chairman, Jay Y. Lee, a place on the board was also approved. “Mr. Lee’s election to the Board will allow him to more actively participate and take formal responsibility in the Company’s important decision-making, contributing to creating long-term, sustainable value for all of our stakeholders,” added Kwon.

Related to Samsung’s earnings news, IDC announced yesterday that overall smartphone shipments were up by 1 percent in Q3 2016, though Samsung’s market share lead over Apple shrank by 3.3 percentage points, due to the Galaxy Note7 fiasco.