In the third quarter of this year
Samsung Electronics is expected to post a record operating profit of 17.2 trillion won (US$15.4 billion) in the third quarter of this year supported by firm demand for memory chips. This was recently learned from the market sources.
The consensus formed by major brokerage firms in Korea marks an 18.5 percent on-year increase in the tech behemoth's profit for the July-September period. The revenue is forecast at 65.2 trillion won, up 5.1 percent from a year ago.
The world's top smartphone maker logged a record high 65.9 trillion won in sales in the fourth quarter of last year and a record high of 15.6 trillion won in operating profit in the first quarter of this year.
Strong demand in memory chips is mainly cited as a key factor for the record-breaking earnings rally for Samsung Electronics, analysts said.
The memory chip market has defied the earlier forecast of many analysts that tipped a downturn of DRAM and NAND flash. While it's true the prices have been on a downtrend, fresh demand has helped it keep up the overall sales, they said.
On the yearly basis, Samsung Electronics will likely record a combined 250 trillion won in sales and 65 trillion won in operating profit for 2018, according to the analysts.