Samsung has reported its most profitable quarter of business in over two years thanks to its resurgent smartphone business.
The Korean firm’s earnings guidance today estimated profit for the second quarter of 2016 at 8.1 trillion KRW ($7 billion) on revenue of 50 trillion KRW, around $43 billion. That’s above the 7.8 trillion KRW predicted by analysts polled by Reuters, and that makes it the firm’s most lucrative period since Q1 2014.
Samsung posted a solid 6.7 trillion KRW profit on revenue of 49.8 trillion KRW in the previous quarter thanks to encouraging sales of its flagship Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge smartphones. The Korean company has not announced any official figures yet, but the devices have reportedly out-sold its top-of-the-range line-up from the previous year thanks to a combination of better timing — launching a month earlier than usual — improved supply chain management, and the fairly incremental updates that Apple put into its latest iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. (That lack of iPhone halo features made Samsung’s phones all the more compelling, so the theory goes.)
After one month of sales, analyst firm Counterpoint Research estimated that Samsung had shipped 10 million Galaxy S7 devices worldwide thus far, some 25 percent more than the Galaxy S6 did at the same point.
Apple’s new iPhones are due later this year so it remains to be seen if Samsung’s mobile division, and thus the company’s overall finances, can continue in this positive vein amid increased competition.