Anchor: South Korea’s tech giant Samsung Electronics said its second-quarter operating profit likely jumped 72 percent from a year earlier to a record 14 trillion won, breaking the previous record set in the third quarter in 2013.
Lee Bo-kyung has more.
 
Report: Samsung Electronics on Friday released its preliminary results for the April-June period, reporting a record high operating profit thanks to a boom in the global chip market and strong sales of its Galaxy S8 smartphone.
 
The firm’s quarterly sales topped the 60 trillion won mark for the first time, while its operating profit ratio also surpassed 20 percent for the first time, as Samsung emerged as the world’s most profitable company.
 
The tech giant’s operating profit surged 72 percent in the second quarter on-year to 14 trillion won, breaking the previous record of ten-point-16 trillion won set in the third quarter in 2013.
 
The figure is considered an earnings surprise as it is larger than the 13-point-two trillion won average of analysts’ estimates.
 
Samsung’s second-quarter sales posted 60 trillion won, up 17-point-eight percent on-year and 18-point-seven percent on-quarter.
 
The firm’s operating margin ratio, the percentage of operating profit relative to the revenue, also hit a record 23-point-three percent in the April-June period, jumping seven-point-three percentage points year-on-year.
 
Samsung’s strong performance was mainly driven by the booming semiconductor market.
 
The industry estimates Samsung earned more than seven trillion won in operating profits from chip sales in the second quarter, which is much greater than the previous record of six-point-three trillion won in the first quarter.
 
Samsung is believed to have posted good results in the sectors of IT mobile, display and consumer electronics as well.
 
The profit outlook for the tech firm is brighter in the second half of the year, with strong memory chip prices, rising demands for organic light-emitting diode(OLED) and the planned release of the Galaxy Note8.
 
Securities firms are expecting Samsung’s operating profit will post over 15 trillion won in the third and fourth quarter.
Lee Bo-kyung, KBS World Radio News.