Samsung Electronics said Tuesday that it expects its operating profit to amount to about nine trillion won in the third quarter, or about six-point-seven billion U.S. dollars, far short of the ten trillion won that analysts had predicted.  

The South Korean tech giant said in its preliminary earnings report that it is likely to post nine-point-one trillion won in operating profit for the July-September period. 

The company estimated that its operating profit for the third quarter increased 274-point-49 percent from a year earlier, but decreased 12-point-84 percent from the previous quarter. 

The worse-than-expected profit is attributed to weak sales of conventional DRAM chips due to sluggish demand for smartphones and personal computers. 

Samsung also lagged behind its rivals in supplying high-bandwidth memory chips. 

Sales, however, gained 17-point-21 percent from a year earlier to post a record high of 79 trillion won, surpassing the previous record of 77-point-78 trillion won logged in the first quarter of 2022.

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Jun Young-hyun, who leads the company’s semiconductor division, issued an apology over the disappointing figures and pledged to make efforts to overcome the crisis, saying all responsibility lies with the management.