[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics said on April 27 its first-quarter net profit shot up 46.29 percent from a year earlier.

Net profit came to 7.68 trillion won (US$6.78 billion) in the January-March period, Samsung said in a regulatory filing.

Operating profit reached 9.89 trillion won, also up 48.27 percent from a year earlier. Sales increased 1.54 percent on-year to reach 50.5 trillion won over the cited period.

Samsung’s operating income was roughly in line with its earlier estimate of 9.9 trillion won. The company attributed its strong performance to expanded sales of premium memory chips.

By sector, the device solution business posted an operating profit of 7.59 trillion won, with the semiconductor sector accounting for 6.31 trillion won by increasing 3.68 percent on-year. It marks the highest performance ever posted by the chip sector.

The display panel division of the DS business held an operating profit of 1.3 trillion won.

The IT-mobile division posted an operating profit of 2.07 trillion won, down 1.83 percent on-year due to the decreased sales price of its flagship Galaxy S7 smartphone.

The consumer electronics division posted an operating profit of 380 billion won, also down 0.12 percent on-year.

By Alex Lee and newswires (alexlee@heraldcorp.com)