Samsung's Q4 operating profit misses forecast

Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics reported forecast-missing quarterly profit on Friday as sales of smartphones and memory chips remained sluggish.

Samsung said it probably posted an operating profit of 6.1 trillion won ($5.08 billion) in the October-December period, up 15.3 percent from the 5.2 trillion won a year earlier but down 17.5 percent from the 7.3 trillion won the previous quarter.

Fourth-quarter sales were estimated at 53 trillion won, up 0.5 percent from the 52.7 trillion won a year earlier, according to the company's earnings guidance.

The estimate hovered slightly below the market consensus of 6.5 trillion won by 16 Korean brokerage houses, according to data compiled by Yonhap Infomax, the financial arm of Yonhap News Agency. The securities firms also suggested sales of 53.6 trillion won for the October-December period.

For all of 2015, Samsung's operating profit came to 26.37 trillion won, up 5.4 percent from the previous year, but sales dropped 2.9 percent to 200.34 trillion won.

However, Samsung posted annual revenue of more than 200 trillion won for the fourth consecutive year. (Yonhap)