Samsung just had a very bad quarter, and the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4 are (partly) to blame

Death, taxes, and Samsung profits. While those three things might seem similarly unavoidable, you can obviously never know when your life will end, how certain taxes may fluctuate from year to year, and when the financial gains of a tech giant like Samsung will start shrinking.

After impressively managing to keep its numbers not only steady but steadily growing for the largest part of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world's top smartphone vendor, chipmaker, and TV manufacturer is reportedly looking at quite possibly its worst quarterly results in a fairly long time.

Of course, the company didn't lose money between July and September 2022, but the overall $8.3 billion or so profit score anticipated by industry analysts for that timeframe would represent a steep drop of around 25 percent from the Q3 2021 total, which is not something investors generally like to see happen to such a thriving business.

Of Samsung's multiple profitable businesses, the flagship chip division is expected to register the biggest year-on-year decline, followed by, you guessed it, the mobile department.

Smartphone profits could fall by around 17 percent when Samsung releases its official third-quarter report, and it's obviously hard not to hold both the Galaxy S22 family and the latest flagship foldable duo accountable for this disappointing result.

Clearly, early reports of booming Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4 sales in key markets were greatly exaggerated... or global demand simply collapsed following a promising start. All that being said, Samsung's "pricy new foldable phones" are praised for boosting average selling prices, which means they probably didn't perform that poorly after all.

The problem is general demand for both smartphones and memory chips that go into smartphones, PCs, and other consumer devices has taken a big hit of late due to a global "economic downturn" caused by rising inflation and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

There was just no way for Samsung to fight all that and emerge as a winner in Q3, hence the company's lowest profit score since Q1 2021 and the first profit dip since Q1 2020.