Samsung, which saw profits tumble by 60 percent last year, is seeing an uptick in its fortunes thanks to stronger than anticipated Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge preorders.

"To be honest, pre-orders of the two Galaxy variants from our major clients are really huge," Samsung's Chief of Mobile, Shin Jong-Kyun, told reporters at MWC last week. And now analysts are pitching in with string estimates.

Henry H Kim, analyst for Citibank, has revised his estimate for Galaxy S6 shipments this year. He is now expecting Samsung to ship 46 million Galaxy S6 handsets this year, up from his previous estimate of 38 million.

Kim also believes that interest in the S6 will also pull in sales for lower-priced handsets. On top of that, he sees the S6 as being good for the supply chain as a whole.

"Success of GS6 will have positive chain impacts on the mid- to low-end market leadership and in-house component businesses (overall DRAM/NAND memory with content growth, mobile AP LSI and AMOLED display panel)."

Despite this, Kin still believes that Samsung will report a 1 percent quarterly decline in operating profits for the first quarter due to "overall slow seasonality" over the Chinese New Year, but that the second quarter will be much more fruitful, with the company expected to post a 39 percent increase in quarterly profit.

According to an unnamed executive, preorders for the Galaxy S6 stand at around 20 million, with the higher-priced (and presumably, higher-margin) Galaxy S6 Edge making up 5 million of that.

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