Samsung's Q2 operating profit seen to top record 10 tln won

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's top maker of smartphones, memory chips and flat-panel TVs, is projected to reap a record 10 trillion won ($8.98 billion) in operating profit in the second quarter thanks to its latest Galaxy smartphone, market analysts said Wednesday.

Samsung Electronics' operating profit in the April-June period is expected to jump 62.2 percent on-year to 10.3 trillion won, according to the data compiled by financial information provider FnGuide.

The second-quarter sales are also projected to jump 23.4 percent on-year to reach 58.7 trillion won, the data showed.

Analysts expect Samsung Electronics to break the 10-trillion won operating income milestone for the second quarter in anticipation for the Galaxy S4 smartphone.

The local release of the newest smartphone is scheduled for later this month. The company said earlier it plans to roll out the Galaxy S4 in the second quarter via 327 operators in 155 countries, including key mobile operators such as AT&T, Vodafone and Telefonica.

Market watchers project Samsung to sell roughly 22 million Galaxy S4 smartphones in the April-June period.

"Samsung may rack up an operating income of more than 10 trillion won for each quarter of the year," said Seo Won-seok, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities.

The South Korean tech giant is scheduled to release its first-quarter earnings next Friday.

Earlier, Samsung Electronics estimated it had posted an operating profit of 8.7 trillion won in the first quarter of the year, posting better-than-expected results despite seasonally slow demand and allowances linked to its patent fight with Apple Inc.

The preliminary first-quarter estimate represents a 52.9 percent increase from a revised operating profit of 5.7 trillion won a year earlier.

But it marks a 1.6 percent decline from three months earlier when the tech behemoth posted a record quarterly operating profit of 8.8 trillion won, buoyed by robust sales of its Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2 smartphones.

Revenue in the January-March period was estimated at 52 trillion won, up 14.9 percent from the previous year, according to the company's earnings guidance.

In March, Samsung Electronics showcased the Galaxy S4 with a 5-inch full HD Super AMOLED display. The flagship phone that comes with a quad-core or octa-core processor depending on the market will be released in both third generation and long-term generation versions, it said earlier.

The Galaxy S4 was rumored to come with features that detect a user's face, voice and motions to enable screen control without directly touching the device.

The "Smart Pause" feature, for instance, pauses a video when a user looks away then resumes it when the user turns back to the screen. The "Smart Scroll" feature also allows a user to scroll up and down without touching the screen.

The smartphone also comes with "air view" and "air gesture" features that allow users to control their smartphone displays by hovering their fingers over the screen, Samsung said earlier.

The Galaxy S4 is expected to be priced at around 900,000 won in South Korea, about 100,000 won lower than that of the previous Galaxy S3. The price is comparable to the iPhone 5's 946,000 won.

The Galaxy S4 is the latest in Samsung's successful Galaxy S line-up that has sold more than 100 million units worldwide.

Thanks to the flagship model that sold more than 40 million units worldwide, Samsung emerged as the world's biggest handset maker and topped long-time market leader Nokia Corp. (Yonhap News)