Samsung Electronics on Tuesday said it was expecting record operating profit of about 15.1 trillion Korean won (about $14.13 billion) for the December quarter.

That number fell short of a Reuters average forecast of 15.9 trillion won in operating profit, but it was likely up 64 percent from a year ago.

Samsung said its fourth-quarter revenue was likely 66 trillion won, which was slightly off a Reuters average forecast of 66.8 trillion won. For the full-year 2017, Samsung said it expects consolidated operating profit of about 53.6 trillion won against 239.6 trillion won in sales.

In the stock market, Samsung shares fell 3.11 percent — likely due to lingering doubts over the company's business outlook. The broader Kospi index closed down 0.12 percent.

"I think the miss, in my opinion, is primarily driven by smartphones," Mehdi Hosseini, senior analyst and senior VP of semiconductors at Susquehanna Financial Group, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday. "I still think that the semiconductor, driven by memory, and display, driven by OLED displays, did really well."

The South Korean tech giant did not elaborate on its performance and will disclose full earnings in late January, according to Reuters.

But over recent quarters, the world's largest marker of memory chips, smartphones and other electronics products has seen its booming semiconductor business become a major earnings driver. That, according to Samsung, is due to strong demand for memory chips from data centers and new smartphones.

Samsung previously said it expected intense competition in the premium segment of the smartphone market in the December quarter due to competitors releasing new devices.

In the previous quarter, Samsung reported an operating profit of 14.5 trillion won ($12.91 billion), which was in line with earlier guidance. It had also recorded a quarterly revenue of about $55 billion and said it would pay dividends of about 29 trillion won in the 2018-2020 period.