Samsung Shares Plunge After Apple Verdict

Shares in Samsung have tumbled after the company was ordered to pay rival Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL - news) more than $1bn for breaching patents.

They dropped by 7.5% - the biggest daily percentage drop the electronics firm has seen in nearly four years - to 1.183 million won (£658).

"An adjustment in the next few days is unavoidable as the damage amount was much bigger than market expectations, and there are further uncertainties such as the possibility of a sales ban," said John Park, an analyst at Daishin Securities (KSE: 003540.KS - news) .

On Friday, a court in California ruled that Samsung had copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad and awarded Apple (Xetra: 865985 - news) $1.05bn (£663.5m) in damages.

Analysts said the judge in the case could later decide to triple the damages because jurors found Samsung acted "wilfully".

Samsung has said it would contest the verdict and is expected to file within days, sources say.

The verdict could lead to an outright ban on sales of key Samsung products and will likely solidify Apple's dominance of the exploding mobile computing market.

"The context of the loss in this case is a lot worse than had been expected," including the amount of damages Samsung is now facing, said Hi Investment and Securities analyst Song Myung-Sup.

If the ruling leads to a US sales ban on the Samsung products subject to dispute, it will start eating away the company's revenue from the fourth quarter, Mr Song said.

Analysts said a key point would be whether the patents battle spreads to Samsung Electronics' flagship Galaxy S III phone. The products ruled to have infringed Apple's patents are all older models.