Galaxy boosts Samsung’s bottom line

By Kim Yoo-chul

Samsung Electronics posted an operating profit of 2.52 trillion won in the area of mobile gadgets in the third quarter, the company said Friday.

This marks the first time that Samsung’s operating profit has surpassed 2 trillion won on a quarterly basis.

Sales of mobile devices, including the Galaxy smart series and feature phones, amounted to 14.9 trillion won in the July-Sept. period, up 20 percent from the previous quarter, and the figure was a quarterly record. Details of its business were disclosed in its regulatory filing.

The ratio of operating profit against sales reached a robust 16.9 percent.

Overall, the tech firm recorded 41.27 trillion won in sales with operating profits reaching 4.25 trillion won. Net profit was 3.44 trillion won.

Samsung’s operating profit beat forecasts by 1 trillion won and exceeded estimates by 50 billion won.

``Samsung sells finished devices such as smartphones and TVs, creating demand for components,’’ Lee Seung-joon, a Samsung spokesman, said Friday, explaining his firm’s better-than-expected performance.

``Samsung sold about 30 million smartphones during the latest quarter from 7.5 million a year ago. That’s remarkable. We are the world's top smartphone maker,’’ said a Samsung official. Samsung said its handset sales swelled by more than 20 percent globally.

Now, Samsung aims to become the world’s biggest handset maker that includes feature phones by beating the decades-long leader Nokia of Finland from early next year, Samsung officials said.

The semiconductor division also played a key role in making Samsung come up with impressive quarterly earnings.

The chip segment, which is Samsung’s ``bread-and-butter’’ business, has seen its profit more than halve to 1.59 trillion won from a year ago.

But the division fared well because high exposure of profitable and advanced computer chips; using much finer processing chipmaking technologies helped it prevent steep falls in chip prices in a bearish market.

Samsung was the only company among major chipmakers to report a profit in the third quarter. The world’s No. 2 Hynix and Elpida of Japan both suffered from heavy losses due to price falls.

Its television business reported 240 billion won in operating profit against revenues of 14.36 trillion won, which was quite disappointing although the market has been flattening out.

As expected, Samsung’s display business reported losses for the third straight quarter because sluggish demand for digital devices including TVs dragged down prices for display panels.