Investing.com-- South Korea’s Samsung Electronics (LON:0593xq) Co Ltd (KS:005930) said it expected a substantial increase in its first-quarter operating profit and sales, as it likely benefited from increased demand across most of its units from artificial intelligence.
Samsung said it expects consolidated operating profit for the three months to March 31 at an average of 6.6 trillion won ($4.9 billion), up from the 640 billion won seen last year. The figure was also stronger than Bloomberg estimates of 5.37 trillion won.
Consolidated sales are expected to have risen to 71 trillion won from 63.75 trillion won last year, Samsung said in a press release on Friday.
The figures were released by Samsung as a precursor to a full earnings report, which the tech conglomerate will release later in April.
The increased earnings likely reflect stronger demand for Samsung’s smartphones and other devices, after the tech giant began incorporating artificial intelligence across most of its devices.
Samsung’s memory chip business is also expected to have seen increased demand from the AI industry, particularly for the high-bandwith memory chips that play a key role in running AI programs.
The firm was recently tapped by AI giant NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) to begin manufacturing advanced HBM chips for use in Nvidia’s processors.
Samsung clocked stronger earnings in the second half of 2023, as demand began picking up from a severe downturn through 2022. This recovery was also largely credited to AI interest, as growing development in the space spurred increased investment in tech.