Samsung posts record profit
World's top technology firm by revenue believed to have beaten Nokia in handset sales
Seoul: Samsung Electronics Co, the world's top technology firm by revenue, reported a record quarterly profit yesterday, as its Galaxy smartphones and Note phone/tablet helped it win market share from Nokia and as it outmuscled Japanese rivals in TVs and memory chips.
The South Korean firm expected its solid earnings momentum to continue in the second quarter, driven by the release of new mobile products, a pick-up in demand for computers and rebounding memory chip prices.
Samsung did not break out its first-quarter smartphone and handset shipments, but analysts forecast it ended Nokia's 14-year leadership of the global cellphone market.
Nokia sold 83 million handsets in January-March, including 12 million smartphones. Samsung is estimated to have sold 90 million handsets, including 44 million smartphones, according to analysts.
Samsung reported January-March operating profit of 5.85 trillion won (Dh18.96 billion), in line with its earlier estimate of 5.8 trillion won, and nearly double 2.95 trillion won a year ago. In the fourth quarter of 2011, the company had an operating profit of 5.3 trillion won.
Samsung shares rose 2.5 per cent in a slightly firmer overall market to a record high of 1.373 million won, a near 30 per cent gain so far this year.
Its handset division profit nearly tripled to 4.27 trillion won, accounting for 73 per cent of total profit. Operating profit margin for handsets jumped to 18.4 per cent from 11 per cent a year ago and 12 per cent in the preceding quarter, helped by strong sales of the high-end Galaxy S and Note.
"Handset momentum will continue this quarter when the new Galaxy S hits the market ahead of the launch of the new iPhone launch, its major competitor," said Brian Park, an analyst at Tong Yang Securities. "The Galaxy S 3's specifications are expected to be sensational and it is already drawing strong interest from the market and consumers."
