Samsung Electronics reported a 73 percent jump in its fourth quarter net profit on Wednesday, setting a record for any three-month period, mainly driven by demand for its memory chips and display panels. Net profit for the October to December period hit 12.26 trillion won ($11.4 billion), the South Korean tech giant said in a statement, on sales up 23.7 percent to 65.98 trillion won.
Samsung Electronics, the flagship subsidiary of the giant Samsung Group, has had to overcome a humiliating recall of the Galaxy Note 7 device and the jailing of its vice-chairman Lee Jae-Yong on corruption charges, but its financial performance has gone from strength to strength.
Its shares have more than doubled in the past two years on the back of its results, reaching levels of more than 2.5 million won apiece, putting them out of reach of many small investors.
The firm announced a 50-for-1 stock split, sending the shares up 6.4 percent in mid-morning trade, but they gave up most of the gains to heavy profit-taking to close just 0.2 percent higher at 2,495,000 won. Operating profit came to 15.15 trillion won in the fourth quarter, up 64.3 percent won from a year earlier, Samsung Electronics said, in line with the indication it issued earlier in January.
Fourth quarter earnings were driven by the components business, with the largest contribution coming from the memory business that manufactures DRAM and NAND chips, the company said. Earnings in the mobile business also fell on the back of higher marketing costs. Operating profits were also undercut by approximately 660 billion won due to the won's appreciation against the dollar and other major currencies, it added.
For the full year, net profit was also a record at 42.19 trillion won, up 85.6 percent on 2016, on sales of 239.58 trillion won. It is paying out 5.8 trillion won in dividends to its shareholders for 2018, up 46 percent year-on-year.
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