Samsung forecasts another record-high quarterly profit

South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. said Friday that its third-quarter operating profit is expected to have nearly tripled on-year, apparently on the sound returns from its computer chip business.

In its earnings preview, Samsung put its July-September operating profit at 14.5 trillion won ($12.8 billion), compared with 5.2 trillion won ($4.6 billion) a year earlier. Sales jumped 30 percent to 62 trillion won ($54.7 billion).

Samsung shares touched a fresh high of 2.74 million won soon after the market opened on Friday, on hopes for record 2017 earnings driven by soaring demand for memory chips with ever greater storage capacity.

Samsung is also expected to announce a new shareholder return policy for the next three years as soon as the end of October, when it releases third-quarter results.


Samsung is supplying memory chips, OLED displays and other parts for rival Apple’s iPhone X, which will be released on November 3. The South Korean firm’s components division stands to make $US110 from for each top-of-the-line, $US1000 iPhone X that Apple sells, according to an analysis conducted by Counterpoint Technology Market Research for The Wall Street Journal.

The precise contributions of each business will be announced at a later date.