(Bloomberg) -- Samsung Electronics Co.’s quarterly profit missed estimates after cooling demand for consumer gadgets hit its chip division, spurring concerns about the outlook for Big Tech in 2022.

Most Read from Bloomberg

• This Is How China Could Hit Back Over Pelosi’s Taiwan Visit

• Pelosi Poised to Land in Taiwan as China Rips ‘Provocative’ Trip

• World’s Most-Tracked Plane Is Jet That May Be Flying Pelosi

• You Won’t Like What Comes After Inflation

The world’s largest producer of smartphones and displays reported a less-than-expected 16% rise in net income, reflecting how it’s still navigating rising uncertainty around a potential global recession. Revenue from its semiconductor division, which as the world’s largest producer of memory is an indicator of electronics demand, missed analysts’ estimates by about 22%.

Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp., which are all major buyers of chips, are reining in budgets for next year and, in turn, denting chipmakers’ capacity expansion plans. Samsung warned of weakening demand for PCs and mobile phones in the second half of the year, joining a growing cadre of tech giants sounding the alarm over global economic uncertainty. Smartphone processor maker Qualcomm Inc. gave a downbeat quarterly outlook on weakening consumer spending, while memory rival SK Hynix Inc. forecast waning growth and rising inventories ahead.

What Bloomberg Intelligence Says

“DRAM contract prices started dropping slightly from April sequentially, stayed flat in May and ended June slightly lower. Monthly DRAM exports have been steady at about $3.5 billion from July 2021, suggesting the rate of growth may shrink further from July this year.”

- Masahiro Wakasugi, BI analyst

Click here for the full research.

Samsung’s shares stood largely unchanged in Seoul.

Korea’s largest company on Thursday said its net income rose to 10.95 trillion won ($8.3 billion) in the three months ended June, missing projections for 11.2 trillion won. Sales from the semiconductor division grew a smaller-than-predicted 24% to 28.5 trillion won, missing estimates for about 36.7 trillion won. The smartphone and networking division however grew 29% to 29.3 trillion won, slightly ahead of expectations.

A tricky balancing act lies ahead for Samsung, as the company, its manufacturing clients and its suppliers all struggle to gauge the extent of future weakness in consumer demand amid component shortages and rising materials costs.

“With the huge amounts of uncertainty in the market, driven by a wide variety of macro issues, we will flexibly supply memory chips by using inventory,” said Han Jinman, executive vice president at Samsung’s semiconductor business at a post-earnings conference call.