Samsung Electronics on Tuesday estimated its third-quarter operating profit reached the highest level in more than three years, beating market expectations.
The world's biggest maker of memory chips expected an operating profit of 12.1 trillion won ($8.5 billion) for the quarter ending in September, up 31.8 percent from 9.18 trillion won a year earlier, according to an earnings guidance released by Samsung Electronics.
It is the largest quarterly earnings since the second quarter of 2022, when the company posted a 14.1 trillion-won operating profit.
The third-quarter operating profit was 17.4 percent higher than the average estimate from a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of Yonhap News Agency.
Sales increased 8.7 percent to a record 86 trillion won, surpassing the previous quarterly record of 79.1 trillion won set in the third quarter of last year. The data for net income was not available.
The company will release its final earnings report later.
Although Samsung Electronics did not disclose detailed figures, analysts estimated that its semiconductor business logged around 6 trillion won in operating profit, contributing to the better-than-expected quarterly results.
They cited a rebound in memory chip prices, increased sales of high bandwidth memory products and reduced losses from its sluggish foundry business as key factors that helped the chip division rebound from a 56 percent on-year plunge in the previous quarter.
"The chip division is expected to have led the upturn in the third quarter," said Jeong Min-gyu, an analyst at Sangsangin Investment & Securities.
Global demand for the company's new foldable smartphones released this summer also supported the strong third-quarter performance.
Looking ahead, experts said Samsung Electronics is likely to maintain solid growth on the back of robust demand for semiconductors.
Recently, the company signed an initial agreement with OpenAI to supply high-performance, low-power memory chips for the US artificial intelligence AI firm's Stargate project.
Market watchers also expect the company's fifth-generation HBM chips to be supplied to Nvidia in the near future.
"Samsung Electronics is expected to post higher growth rates next year than other memory chipmakers as its HBM business secures more new customers," said Ryu Young-ho, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities. "Its mobile business is also forecast to maintain steady growth thanks to continued demand for its flagship products." (Yonhap)
