Samsung Electronics' domestic net sales hit 8-year low

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's top smartphone maker that recorded a three-year-low bottom line last year, posted the worst net sales on its home soil in eight years in that period, weakened by its sluggish handset business, an audit report showed Monday.
Net sales of the South Korean tech powerhouse reached 20.7 trillion won ($18.8 billion) in Asia's fourth-largest economy in 2014, down 9 percent from a year earlier, according to the accountant's report on the company.
Net sales refer to a company's income generated from selling its goods minus internal transactions between subsidiaries. For instance, returns accrued by a production line to a sales body are not counted in the figures, according to South Korea's News Agency (Yonhap).
Samsung Electronics' net sales in Korea had been on a sharp upturn since 2007, when they surpassed the 20 trillion-won mark for the first time to book 21.1 trillion won from 18.8 trillion won the previous year.
Its dwindling sales of the flagship Galaxy smartphones has since begun to weigh on the domestic net sales. Samsung Electronics' mobile division saw its net sales sink 19.5 percent on-year to 11.2 trillion won last year.
The display panel sector logged net sales of 25.7 trillion won for 2014, down 13.8 percent on-year, driving down the overall figures.
The tech giant booked 23.4 trillion won for its 2014 bottom line, the lowest since 2011. The profit from the mobile business, the company's cash cow, plunged 64 percent on-year to 1.96 trillion won in the fourth quarter alone.
Its weak net sales in South Korea, however, stands relatively small compared with the results in other regions across the globe.
The net sales from Europe shrank by 22.7 percent in 2014 from a year earlier, the biggest drop, followed by 17.7 percent in China.
The net sales from Korea came third, trailed by the combined 6.6 percent fall in Asia and Africa, and the United States with a 1 percent drop.