The Samsung logo is seen on an Android mobile phone.
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SINGAPORE – Samsung Electronics said on Friday that its operating profit for the quarter ending December probably rose 26% from a year ago to Korea’s 9 trillion won ($ 8.222 billion).
It mainly coincided with analysts ’estimate of 9.1 trillion won, according to Refinitiv SmartEstimate.
Shares of Samsung Electronics in South Korea jumped 7.12% on Friday.
The company said its fourth-quarter consolidated sales reached 61 trillion won, up nearly 2% from the previous year. Samsung did not break down the performance of each business unit, including its main for-profit semiconductor business.
The full results for the December quarter will be presented later this month.
Korean earnings and smartphone sales
Samsung’s guidelines fell short of analysts’ expectations for two reasons, according to Daniel Kim, a senior research analyst at Macquarie Equities Research.
“A strong Korean won against (a) a pair of major currencies such as the US dollar and the euro,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Friday. The other reason is “disappointing” smartphone sales, which had been quite erratic in recent quarters, Kim said.
But the analyst is bullish on the stock market. He noted that memory chip prices are expected to turn around this quarter, and that average selling prices are expected to rise, which would benefit the semiconductor business.
“The memory recovery time is likely to be much longer than a lot of people think. That’s why I’m very comfortable with my performance above the stock market,” Kim said, adding that Samsung is still one of the cheapest semiconductor stocks in the world. ” “
Both operating profit and consolidated sales fell quarter-on-quarter, according to Friday’s guidance.