Samsung Expects Fifth Record Quarter

South Korean electronics manufacturer Samsung has estimated its latest quarterly profits will reach $8.3 billion, making it the fifth record-breaking quarter in a row.

This growth was mainly fuelled by the company’s success in the mobile device market. Besides manufacturing the high-selling Galaxy tablet and smartphone series, Samsung also makes components for competitor products, including Apple’s iPhone.

The company also said it now sells almost 500 mobile phones every minute. Following the news, Samsung’s share price reached record levels.

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Samsung shipped an estimated 63 million handsets in the last quarter of the year, including around 15 million units of its flagship Galaxy S III smartphone, along with 8 million units of the recently-launched Galaxy Note II.

At the moment, it is growing faster than Apple, with many analysts attributing it to the fact that Samsung launched 37 different handsets last year, while the US titan only released one – the iPhone 5.

The South Korean company is currently worth around $230 billion, which is still less than half of Apple’s $600 billion value. However, many analysts expect Samsung to increase its smartphone sales by more than a third this year, and widen its lead over Apple.

“Samsung’s profit will drop in the current quarter because of decreased phone profits. It will launch the Galaxy S IV only in March or April so, without new models, phone sales prices will fall this quarter. For the whole year, Samsung will launch new models faster than Apple and have the upper hand in the smartphone market,” Song Myung-sub, an analyst at HI Investment & Securities, told Reuters.

Meanwhile on Monday, once-great HTC reported a 91 percent decline in net profit. The previous quarter saw an almost 80 percent decline. Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi told TechWeekEurope HTC was suffering due to “undifferentiated products and a weaker brand compared to Samsung”.

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