Samsung Reports $7.4B Profit, Another Record

Samsung Electronics Co. posted a fourth straight record quarterly profit - of $7.4 billion – Friday morning, with strong sales of its Galaxy line of phones compensating for sharply lower memory chip sales.

The record run, though, is likely to end in December, with profit growth slowing even more next year as TV markets stagnate and growth in the high-end smartphone market eases, Reuters reports. Profit is expected to grow 16 percent next year down from a forecast 73 percent this year, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

"The biggest concern for Samsung is that its smartphone growth momentum will slow. It'll be difficult for Samsung to maintain such a high profit margin from handsets as the market gets crowded and competition will intensify," said Nam Dae-jong, analyst at Hana Daetoo Securities.

Samsung said July-September operating profit almost doubled from a year ago to 8.12 trillion Korean won, in line with its earlier estimate.

Reporting its results just hours after main rival Apple Inc, Samsung did not detail its third-quarter smartphone shipments, though these are estimated to have soared to 58 million. Apple, which launched its latest iPhone 5 in September, said it shipped 26.9 million iPhones in July-September.