Samsung sitting on $40 billion in cash, $28.5 billion after debt

There has been a lot of talk recently about Samsung's financials and its rising profits, and the new word is that we should probably expect to see some acquisitions from Samsung, because the company is sitting on quite a lot of cash. According Samsung's last earnings report, the company has built up $40 billion in cash, and even after subtracting the company debt, it has $28.5 billion in cash.

On Monday, we heard that Samsung had the second largest profits in the smartphone market, behind the perennial leader, Apple. Over the past couple years, Apple has started to use its cash reserves to provide dividends and share buybacks to investors, but analysts are thinking that Samsung will use its cash reserves on acquisitions.

Samsung told the Wall Street Journal that the use of the cash reserves will be focused on "investments sustainable for areas like facilities, R&D, and marketing that will help the company solidify or boost competitiveness", which is to say that Samsung avoided giving a real answer to what it plans for the money. But, that is quite a lot of money, and it could go a long way with the right investments.