Samsung Electronics reports 88.9% jump in Q2 net profit

[SEOUL] Samsung Electronics on Thursday reported an 88.9 per cent jump in its second quarter net profit, boosted by demand for its memory chips and a rise in smartphone sales as the firm seeks to move on from last year's recall debacle.

Net profit for the April to June period rose to 11.05 trillion won (S$13.46 billion) from 5.85 trillion won a year ago, the South Korean tech giant said in a statement.

Operating profit was up 72.9 per cent from the previous year to 14.07 trillion won, while the firm's overall sales increased 19.7 per cent to 61 trillion won.

"The components businesses drove significant earnings growth... thanks primarily to strong memory demand for high-density DRAMs and SSDs for servers," the company said.

Samsung - the world's largest maker of mobile phones as well as memory chips - provides its chips to other companies including archrival Apple.

Profit breakdown showed the firm's semiconductor business raked in 8.03 trillion won in operating profit in the second quarter, up 204 per cent from the previous year.

AFP