[ THE INVESTOR ] Samsung Electronics said in a preliminary earnings report on Jan. 6 that it has reaped 9.2 trillion won(US$7.8billion) in operating profit during the October-December period, beating market estimates of around 8 trillion won.









The operating profit for the three-month period is 49.84 percent higher than the one for the fourth quarter in 2015, at 6.14 trillion won.



The estimated revenue of the firm during the came in at 53 trillion won, down 0.6 percent from the same period last year.



Samsung’s annual sales last year stood at 201.5 trillion won, up 0.44 percent from 2015 while its operating profit came in at 29.2 trillion won, up 10.64 percent year-on-year.



Strong demand for memory chips in the smartphone sector, which sequentially led to the increased margin of the chips, is said to have helped make up for the loss caused by the discontinuation of the Note 7.



After a series of fire and explosion cases of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone since September last year, Samsung discontinued the sales of the phone and conducted an unprecedented recall program since October.



The tech giant recently said 94 percent of 950,000 Note 7s sold in South Korea have been retrieved so far. It has released a software update that limits the battery charge to 15 percent.



By Kim Young-won(wone0102@heraldcorp.com)