By Joyce Lee and Heekyong Yang
SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Thursday forecast a recovery in global demand for tech devices in 2022 after reporting its highest fourth-quarter profit in four years, but warned of ongoing challenges from supply chain issues and COVID-19.
Fourth-quarter profit for the world’s largest memory chip and smartphone maker rose 53%, helped by brisk sales of memory chips and higher margins in chip contract manufacturing.
Operating profit rose to 13.9 trillion won ($11.6 billion) for October-December, from 9 trillion won a year earlier, in line with the company’s estimate of 13.8 trillion won earlier this month.
Net profit rose 64% to 10.8 trillion won. Revenue rose 24% to a record 76.6 trillion won.
Still, despite reporting record quarterly revenue and an on-year jump in operating profit, analysts said the profits were lower than the market had expected due to conservative shipments of memory chips, R&D costs and one-off year-end bonuses.
($1 = 1,197.0300 won)
(Reporting by Joyce Lee & Heekyong Yang; editing by Richard Pullin)
