Samsung Electronics has announced that the company’s operating profit in the third quarter of this year rose by around 28 percent — the highest growth for the South Korean giant registered in three years.

Semiconductors accounted for about half of Samsung’s operating profit in the first half of the year. The rise in the operating profit is likely because of the rising prices of memory chips in the market and the spike in sales for display, catering to the need of smartphone manufacturers for their flagship models.

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Samsung estimated that its profit in the third quarter of this year, meaning in the months of July to September, could stand at 15.8 trillion won, which is approximately $13.3 billion. The numbers are below the estimate of 16.1 trillion won by Refinitiv SmartEstimate.

According to industry analysts, the rising memory chip prices and shipments, along with a jump in profitability at Samsung’s chip contract manufacturing business, likely raised the chip division’s operating profit by about 79 percent from a year earlier.

Samsung also benefited from the demand for its recent foldable smartphones and is increasing its market share in this category. The company reportedly sold over two million units of its new flagship smartphones within a month.

The company’s operating profit for the current quarter is expected to be similar or slightly below the third quarter. Analysts are pointing to expectations that prices for memory chips used in personal computers will tumble from the fourth quarter as global lockdowns ease, and the smartphone shipments may also decline.

Samsung’s chip manufacturing business is also showing positive signs and the company recently announced that it’ll start working on the 3nm process for smartphone chips from next year and will shift to the 2nm process in 2025.

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