Did Jobs` curse cause Samsung Electronics shares to fall?

Shares of Samsung Electronics fell to 866,000 won (771 U.S. dollars) Thursday after having soared to the 1 million won (890 U.S. dollar) level in late January.

This dashed the expectations of many analysts who believed that Samsung shares would grow to 1.4 million won (1,250 dollars) on the back of rebounding semiconductor shares and growing IT demand.

The steep fall came shortly after Apple CEO Steve Jobs blasted Samsung last week for exaggerating its sales of the tablet PC Galaxy Tab at a launching event for Apple’s new iPad 2. This prompted analysts to say Jobs has put a curse on Samsung.

So is Samsung really cursed by Jobs? Or is there another reason for the stock plunge?

At the launching event, Jobs said the sell-in (supply to distributers) of the Galaxy Tab was quite aggressive with 2 million units, but the volume of the sell-out (consumer sales) was low.

Samsung initially made no specific response to Jobs` comment because the Wall Street Journal said he was incorrect. The daily misunderstood a Samsung executive’s comment of “quite smooth” on the Galaxy Tab sales for “quite small.”

Rumors began swirling, however, that inventory of the Galaxy Tab is increasing. JPMorgan also said Wednesday in an IT hardware report that the tablet PC market entered a bubble phase this year, with oversupply at 35.9 percent.

JPMorgan warned that if the bubble in the tablet PC market bursts, Apple’s rivals and not Apple itself will be hit the hardest.

Samsung shares began plummeting Monday and fell 8.36 percent over four days.

artemes@donga.com