Preliminary figure for consolidated operating profit was estimated at 7.3 trillion won (6.3 billion USA dollars) in the three months ending September 30, the company said in its earnings guidance for the third quarter.
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John Park, an analyst at Daishin Securities, said the tech giant rose on speculation that the company may announce plans to return more of its profits to shareholders, possibly through a share buyback.
The third-quarter operating income also marks a 5.8 percent rise from the 6.9 trillion won posted for the previous quarter.
Third-quarter operating profit from the two business units are expected to increase by 500 billion won from the second quarter, said Choi Do-Yeon, an analyst at Kyobo Securities.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters most recently expected Samsung to report an operating profit of 6.74 trillion won in the third quarter of 2015.
Its semiconductor business was estimated to have performed well during the quarter on the back of predominant technological prowess in the nano-level making of DRAM chips and brisk sales of system LSI chips.
The prediction beats the estimate of 6.7 trillion won given by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.
Samsung expanded its Samsung Pay mobile payment service to the USA last month, hoping that its mobile payment technology, available only to a few of the latest Samsung phones, would boost sales of Galaxy handsets.
Market watchers said it remained to be seen whether Samsung could maintain the earnings surprise in the fourth quarter when key smartphone manufacturers unveil new models and competition becomes fiercer.
The decline in seasonal demand for mobile devices and chips, with the rising marketing costs to tackle archrival Apple, are also cited as negative factors, they added. Chinese makers have eaten up its lower end market. A large chunk of Samsung’s handset sales came from its mid- to low-end smartphone models that were not as profitable as Apple’s iPhones.
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Seoul shares rose to a near one-month high by midday on Tuesday as market heavyweight Samsung Electronics bolstered the main board, while automakers weighed on the bourse.
