SEOUL: Samsung Electronics has said that it expected its profits for the first three months of 2024 to jump by more than 10-fold compared to a year earlier.
It comes as prices of chips have recovered from a post-Covid-19 slump and demand for artificial intelligence related products booms.
South Korea-based Samsung is the world’s largest memory chips maker, smartphones and televisions.
The company would release a detailed financial report on 30 April, according to BBC.
The technology giant estimated that its operating profit surged to 6.6 trillion won ($4.9 billion) in the January-March quarter, 931 percent higher than the same period in 2023. That beat analysts’ expectations of about 5.7 trillion won.
Its earnings are likely to be boosted by a rebound in semiconductor prices on the international market after a severe downturn a year earlier.
Global memory chip prices are estimated to have increased by around a fifth in the last year.
Samsung’s semiconductor division is usually the biggest revenue earner for the company.
Demand for semiconductors is also likely to remain strong this year, helped by the boom in AI technologies.
Earthquake’s effects on Samsung
The earthquake that hit Taiwan on April 3 may also tighten the international supply of chips, which could allow Samsung to raise prices further.
Taiwan is home to many major chipmakers, including TSMC – which is a supplier to Apple and Nvidia.
While TSMC has said the earthquake did not have a notable impact on its production it witnessed some disruption to its operations.
Samsung is also likely to get a boost from sales of its new flagship Galaxy S24 smartphones, which were launched in January.
