Samsung expects fourth-quarter profit of $8.3B -- another record
South Korea electronics giant expects to report a fifth consecutive record quarterly profit on strong handset sales.
Samsung Electronics, the world's largest consumer electronics maker, expects to post another record profit when it reveals its fourth-quarter results later this month on continued strong handset sales .
The South Korean electronics giant estimated today that its fourth-quarter operating profit had jumped 88 percent to 8.8 trillion Korean won ($8.3 billion) over the year-ago period. The forecast, which would represent a fifth consecutive record quarterly profit, beats analysts' expectations of a 8.7 trillion won profit.
The company, which also estimated its fourth-quarter sales at 56 trillion won ($52.6 billion), will announce its results on January 25.
Shipments of Samsung's Galaxy S3 edged out Apple's iPhone 4S in the third quarter to become the world's most popular smartphone model. According to figures released by research firm Strategy Analytics in November, the Galaxy S3 commanded 10.7 percent of the global smartphone market in the third quarter compared with 9.7 percent for the iPhone 4S. The iPhone 5 held just 3.6 percent of the global share.
According to the figures, Samsung shipped 18 million Galaxy S3 units in the third quarter, up from 5.4 million in the second quarter, an increase of 230 percent. Samsung also said in November that it had already sold more than 5 million Galaxy Note 2 devices worldwide, just two months after the product was first released.