Shares of Samsung Electronics Co. rose for the sixth consecutive session Wednesday as local analysts unleashed optimism on the top-cap company's earnings for the second quarter.
Samsung closed up 0.57 percent at 1,406,000 won ($1,216.40) on South Korea's main bourse on the back of strong foreign buying, ending above the 1,400,000 won level for the first time in 13 months. At one point in morning trade, Samsung's stock price hit a fresh 52-week high of 1,419,000 won.
The company's market value came to 201 trillion won ($174 billion), crossing the 200 trillion won mark for the first time in nearly seven months and accounting for 15.65 percent of the total market capitalization.
The gain came as several local securities companies upgraded their second-quarter earnings outlook for the tech behemoth, the flagship and cash cow of South Korea's top family-run conglomerate Samsung Group.
In a note to clients, Hanwha Investment and Securities Co. on Wednesday predicted Samsung's operating profit to soar to 7.7 trillion won for the April-June period, bolstered by strong sales of its latest Galaxy S7 smartphone.
"Samsung's profit growth will likely continue in the second quarter on brisk sales of the Galaxy S7 though there were concerns over its outlook following an earnings surprise in the first quarter," said Lee Soon-hak, who authored the note.
Buoyed by robust sales of its flagship smartphones, Samsung posted an operating profit of 6.67 trillion won in the January-March period of this year, up 11.7 percent from a year earlier.
Lee said Samsung's organic light-emitting diode (OLED) segment will likely chalk up an operating profit of more than 600 billion won, helped by high demand for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge smartphones.
The company's home electronics business, including TVs, is expected to fare better in the second quarter, but the second-quarter operating profit of its semiconductor division is likely to reach a level similar to the previous quarter due to a fall in prices of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, he added.
"The chip division is projected to see its operating profit turn for the better in the second half of this year, backed by a rebound in sales of 3D NAND flash memory chips," Lee said.
Daishin Securities Co. said Samsung will likely pull off an earnings surprise for the current quarter, offering an operating profit forecast of 7.74 trillion won.
"Samsung's IT and mobile segment is likely to see its second-quarter profitability beat the market forecast for the second consecutive quarter on resilient sales of its latest smartphones," Park Kang-ho, an analyst at Daishin Securities, said.
Park predicted global sales of the Galaxy S7 series smartphones will reach up to 15 million units during the April-June period, with the figure exceeding 25 million units within the first half.
The Galaxy S7 smartphones hit store shelves in early March.
He estimated the operating profit of the IT and mobile division to come in at 4.27 trillion won for the second quarter, up a whopping 55 percent from the same period a year earlier.
On Tuesday, IBK Investment & Securities Co. forecast Samsung's second-quarter operating profit to reach 7.8 trillion won, well above the median market outlook. The brokerage cited the chip division's solid earnings and improved profits in the display segment.
In a research note, Eugene Investment & Securities Co. also upgraded its outlook for Samsung's second-quarter operating profit to 7.45 trillion won, saying Samsung's IT-mobile, display and consumer electronics divisions will all likely post better earnings.
Samsung is slated to release its earnings guidance for the second quarter in early July. (Yonhap)
