Samsung expects first quarter profits to jump

Seoul: Embattled Samsung Electronics said on Friday it expects profits to jump by half in the first quarter, despite a smartphone recall fiasco and the arrest of its de facto head. The forecast will come as welcome news to the South Korean giant after a torrid period in which it had to ditch its flagship Galaxy Note 7 after several battery fires. The debacle cost the company billions of dollars in lost profit and hammered its global reputation and credibility. Its vice-chairman Lee Jae-Yong, heir to the parent Samsung group, has since been arrested and indicted for bribery, along with four other senior executives, in connection with a graft scandal that saw ex-president Park Geun-Hye impeached. On Friday, the world’s largest memory chip and smartphone maker said it expected its operating profit in the January-March period at 9.9 trillion won ($8.8 billion), up 48.2 per cent from a year earlier, thanks to strong sales of memory chips and display panels. It would mark the second-highest quarterly operating profit ever posted by Samsung. — AFP