Seoul: Samsung Electronics Co. announced on Wednesday a significant rise in its first-quarter net profit, marking an increase of over 20 percent compared to the previous year. This growth was primarily driven by robust sales of its newly launched Galaxy S series smartphones, although its semiconductor business faced challenges.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the company reported a net income of 8.22 trillion won (US$5.7 billion) for the January to March period, reflecting a 21.7 percent increase from 6.75 trillion won in the same period last year. This result surpassed market expectations, with analysts earlier estimating an average net profit of 5.17 trillion won based on a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data arm of Yonhap News Agency.
Operating profit for the quarter was recorded at 6.68 trillion won, marking a 1.2 percent increase from the previous year, while revenue climbed 10 percent to achieve an all-time quarterly high of 79.14 trillion won. Samsung attributed this better-than-expected performance to the strong sales of its smartphone business, particularly following the January debut of the latest Galaxy S25 models.
The company's DX division, encompassing the mobile, TV, and home appliances sectors, reported a 28 percent year-on-year sales jump to 51.7 trillion won, with an operating profit of 4.7 trillion won. Specifically, the mobile segment alone contributed 37 trillion won in sales and 4.3 trillion won in operating profit.
Despite the positive trends in mobile sales, Samsung's semiconductor division faced a downturn. Sales in this sector fell by 17 percent to 25.1 trillion won, with an operating profit of 1.1 trillion won, largely due to underperformance in the high bandwidth memory (HBM) sector.