SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Samsung Electronics said Friday it expects profits to soar by 48.2 percent in the first quarter despite a smartphone recall fiasco and the arrest of its de facto head.
The world’s largest memory chip and smartphone maker estimated its operating profit in the January-March period at 9.9 trillion won ($8.8 billion), up 48.2 percent from a year earlier, thanks to strong sales of memory chips and display panels.
It marked the second-highest quarterly operating profit ever posted by Samsung.
Its largest-ever quarterly operating profit was 10.1 trillion won recorded in the third quarter of 2013.
The jump in operating profits came despite Samsung sales only increasing by 0.44 percent to 50 trillion won on-year.
Analysts put the solid results down to fat margins in chips and OLED display panels.