SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics Co Ltd reported a 46% rise in first-quarter profit on Thursday from brisk sales of smartphones and TVs, despite a fall in chip earnings after a storm-related cut in U.S. output and the costs of a production ramp-up.
Operating profit rose to 9.4 trillion won ($8.48 billion) for the quarter ended March from 6.45 trillion won a year earlier, the world’s top maker of memory chips said. That was slightly higher than the company‘s estimate of 9.3 trillion won earlier this month.
($1 = 1,108.9800 won)
(Reporting by Joyce Lee and Heekyong Yang; editing by Richard Pullin)
