By Cho Hyung-kwon
Staff Reporter

Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest computer memory chipmaker, on Friday reported its second-quarter net income almost tripled to more than 3 trillion won from a year ago on record quarterly sales of 15 trillion won, thanks to strong demand for chips and flat-panel displays.
The company said its net income reached 3.13 trillion won, up 177.2 percent from a year ago on sales of 14.9 trillion won, up 52.3 percent from a year ago. Sales were the largest quarterly amount.

Operating profit jumped 221.6 percent to 3.7 trillion won compared to 1.1 trillion won in the same period last year. For the first half of this year, its sales reached 29.4 trillion won with 7.74 trillion won in operating profit.

It said that the climbs in DRAM prices in the face of a decline in flash memory prices boosted operating profit and sales.

It added that sales from the LCD division also rose, despite concerns that the LCD TV market would see slower growth.

``We are quite satisfied with the second-quarter results. Even though there was a slight decline in profits from the first quarter, operating profit was more than threefold of last year. Samsung is the most profitable company in the IT industry and we believe we can be among the top five globally regardless of the industry sector,” said Chu Woo-sik, senior vice president of the IR Team.

``Sales are close to 15 trillion won and our second-quarter results show that Samsung is able to generate robust earnings even under the unfavorable external environment,’’ he added.

Samsung decided to raise interim dividends to 5,000 won per share from 500 won as net profit in the first half already exceeded the combined profit for last year. It also plans to invest 8.9 trillion won this year in capital expenditure, up 1 trillion won from the initial plan announced at the beginning of the year.

Samsung Electronics shares rose more than 2 percent after falling by as much as 2.2 percent to below 400,000 won in the morning session before the announcement. The last time Samsung’s shares closed below 400,000 won was on Sept. 30 last year. After peaking at 637,000 won on April 23, it has declined almost 35 percent for the past three months.

``I believe there will be opportunities for seasonal demand for IT products in the second half. There are some signs of macro slowdown in the United States and the possibility of some supply pressure in sectors such as TFT-LCD,’’ Chu said.

``But Samsung will overcome these challenges and step up efforts through product diversification, superior technology and lower costs. Our aggressive capital expenditure and investment in research and development will further widen the existing gap with other competitors,’’ he added.

The semiconductor sector posted revenues of 4.58 trillion won and operating profit of 2.15 trillion won. The telecommunications division recorded sales of 4.94 trillion won, up 1.8 percent from the first quarter and operating profit of 800 billion won, down 38 percent.

The digital media division posted a net loss of 7 billion won while consumer electronics sectors posted net losses of 10 billion won.

kevincho@koreatimes.co.kr