The company says that it will likely beat expectations with an operating income of $5.7 billion (6.6 trillion won), versus analyst expectations of 4.43 trillion won.
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Samsung estimated overall sales for the first quarter at 49 trillion won, up from 47.1 trillion won a year before. The company did not provide details on its trading performance for the period, and will disclose full earnings in late April.
For the same quarter in 2015, Samsung’s operating profit was at 6tn won.
Korea’s top tech giants are expected to enjoy improved sales from their mobile businesses, industry watchers said Thursday, as their flagship smartphones just released in March are boasting better-than-expected sales at home and overseas.
The won’s average exchange rate also fell 8.4 percent against the dollar during the first quarter, which investors and analysts said would further boost the bottom line. Analysts revised their first-quarter sales forecasts for the Galaxy S7 smartphones sharply higher to about 10 million units from 5 million to 7 million units.
Hwang Joon-ho, an analyst at KDB Daewoo Securities Co., echoed the view, adding new features adopted by the Galaxy S7 series added to the strong sales, with the combined shipment estimated to reach 45 million for 2016.
And Samsung will face a fresh challenge following the launch Thursday of Huawei’s P9 smartphone – the Chinese maker’s first foray into the high-end segment of the market where it hopes to take on the iPhone and Galaxy S handsets. If Samsung meets its guidance, it would be a turnaround from the earnings slump in the final quarter of a year ago. Earnings improved in late 2015 but that was largely thanks to the performance of its semiconductor division.
This story was revised to correct that operating profit represents a 10 percent gain from a year earlier, not 7.5 percent gain.
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Shares of Samsung Electronics Co. traded at 1,285,000 won as of 9:36 a.m., remaining unchanged from the previous session, when the market advanced 0.25 percent.
