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Roundup: Samsung Electronics' operating profit rebounds in Q1

Xinhua, April 7, 2015 Adjust font size:

Samsung Electronics, the world's largest maker of smartphones, memory chips and TVs, saw its operating profit rebound in the first quarter, shrugging off worries about faltering earnings, the company said Tuesday.

Preliminary figure for the company's operating profit was 5.9 trillion won (5.4 billion U.S. dollars) in the three months ending March 31, up 11.53 percent from three months earlier, Samsung said in a statement.

Samsung's operating profit topped 10 trillion won in the third quarter of 2013, posting the largest earnings in the company's history, but it has since declined to 4.06 trillion won in the third quarter of 2014, falling below 5 trillion won for the first time in about three years.

The operating profit resumed rising to 5.29 trillion won in the fourth quarter of last year and to 5.9 trillion won in the first quarter of this year.

The first-quarter figure surpassed market forecast of about 5.4 trillion won, but it tumbled 30.51 percent from a year earlier.

Revenue reached 47 trillion won in the first quarter, down 10. 87 percent from three months earlier and 12.44 percent from a year earlier.

The lower revenue came as demand for IT products was seasonally weak during the first quarter. The South Korean currency's movement to the U.S. dollar also had a negative effect on the revenue.

The company did not unveil its estimates for net profit and a breakdown of each business. The final results will be announced later this month after an external audit.

The upbeat operating profit came amid strong demand for Samsung 's flagship Galaxy smartphones and memory chips, market watchers said.

Samsung's semiconductor business recorded 2.3 trillion won in the third quarter of last year and 2.7 trillion won in the fourth quarter in operating profit even when the company's overall profit remained low. The unit's operating profit in the first quarter of this year was expected to exceed 3 trillion won.

Global prices of memory chips, including DRAM and NAND Flash, showed a stable picture recently, and Samsung has recently started mass-producing 14-nano System LSI chips, contributing to the positive earnings.

The smartphone unit was forecast to register more than 2 trillion won in operating profit in the first quarter. The unit's operating profit surpassed 6 trillion won in the first quarter of 2014, but it tumbled to 1.75 trillion won in the third quarter and 1.96 trillion won in the fourth quarter of last year.

The smartphone division's earnings are expected to rise sharply during the second quarter on the back of robust sales of the newly launched Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. Endi