Seoul: Samsung Electronics Co. on Tuesday estimated its first-quarter operating profit edged down 0.15 percent from a year earlier but exceeded market expectations on strong sales of its new flagship smartphones.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the world's biggest maker of memory chips expected an operating profit of 6.6 trillion won (US$4.5 billion) for the quarter ending in March, as revealed in an earnings guidance released by Samsung Electronics. This figure was notably 33.5 percent higher than the average estimate of 4.9 trillion won, based on a survey conducted by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of Yonhap News Agency.
Sales for the quarter increased 9.8 percent to 79 trillion won. However, data for net income was not available. Industry experts have suggested that the better-than-expected performance could be attributed to the popularity of the new Galaxy S25 smartphones, which were launched in February.
While Samsung Electronics did not provide a detailed earnings report for its business divisions, market analysts have forecasted that the company's semiconductor business generated approximately 1 trillion won in operating profit for the first quarter. The company has announced that it will release its final earnings report later in the month.