In this Jan 29, 2020 photo, the logo of Samsung Electronics is seen on a glass door at a company showroom in Seoul on Jan 30, 2020. (PHOTO / AFP)

SEOUL - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Wednesday said first-quarter profit likely rose 44 percent, with analysts attributing the surge to brisk sales of smartphones and TVs, albeit tempered by a likely fall in chip earnings after a storm halted US output.

The South Korean technology giant forecast January-March operating profit of 9.3 trillion won (US$8.32 billion), matching a weighted average analyst forecast from Refinitiv SmartEstimate.

Revenue likely rose 17 percent from the same period a year prior to 65 trillion won, the firm said in a preliminary earnings release without offering any breakdown of the figures.

Samsung is due to release detailed earnings later this month.

Samsung’s share price traded down 0.4 percent after the release versus a 0.2 percent rise in the benchmark KOSPI. The stock has risen about 6.2 percent so far this year versus the KOSPI’s 8.8 percent.

Analysts said Samsung’s mobile division likely saw operating profit soar more than 1 trillion won to about 4.15 trillion won after its flagship Galaxy S21 smartphone series outsold the previous version by a two-to-one margin in the six weeks since its January launch, according to research provider Counterpoint

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Analysts said Samsung’s mobile division likely saw operating profit soar more than 1 trillion won to about 4.15 trillion won after its flagship Galaxy S21 smartphone series outsold the previous version by a two-to-one margin in the six weeks since its January launch, according to research provider Counterpoint.

A lower starting price for the flagship helped sales for the world’s largest smartphone maker during the quarter, with the S21 priced $200 lower than the S20, Counterpoint said.

In its chip division, analysts said profit likely fell 20 percent to 3.6 trillion won due to the cost of ramping up domestic production as well as losses at its Texas plant following a mid-February stoppage, blunting the benefits of strong demand.

US memory chip peer Micron Technology Inc last month forecast third-quarter revenue above analyst estimates due to rising demand brought about by a global shift to remote work.

The price of DRAM chips widely used in laptops and other computing devices rose 5.3 percent in January-March from the previous three months, showed data from TrendForce. Analysts expect that trend to continue as a global chip shortage spurs on buyers to snap up supplies.

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“Prices are likely to rise further in the current quarter due to solid demand for servers,” said analyst Park Sung-soon at Cape Investment & Securities.

Profit in Samsung’s television set and home appliance business likely more than doubled to around 1 trillion won, analysts said, also due to continued stay-at-home demand.