LG Electronics' Q1 operating profit hits 8-year high

South Korean tech behemoth LG Electronics posted the highest profit in eight years on the back of brisk sales of home appliances and the reduced deficit in the smartphone business, a regulatory filing showed Thursday.

Operating profit reached 921.5 billion won (813 million U.S. dollars) in the January-March quarter, up 82.4 percent from the same period of last year.

It marked the biggest profit since the second quarter of 2009 when the company recorded the biggest quarterly profit. It also turned around from the operating loss of 35.3 billion won in the previous quarter.

Revenue gained 10 percent to 14.66 trillion won in the quarter. Net income reached 835.7 billion won, more than quadrupling compared with a year earlier.

The home appliances-making division posted 520.8 billion won of operating profit on revenue of 4.64 trillion won, leading the company's overall earnings. The unit's operating margin was 11.2 percent, marking the company's first double-digit number.

The smartphone business recorded an operating loss of 0.2 billion won in the quarter, but the deficit fell from the previous quarter. LG's smartphone sales numbered 14.8 million units, up 10 percent from a year ago.

The phone-making unit's operating loss had grown from 202.2 billion won in the first quarter of last year to 467 billion won in the fourth quarter of the same year, before falling to 0.2 billion won in the first quarter of this year.

The TV-making business posted an operating profit of 382.2 billion won on revenue of 4.33 trillion won. The unit logged an operating margin of 8.8 percent, higher than any first-quarter figure recorded by LG. Enditem (1 U.S. dollar equals to 1134.34 South Korean Wo