Samsung predicts record operating profit for Q3

Samsung is huge, and this latest quarter doesn't look to change that at all. The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that Samsung is estimating Q3 of 2013 to be a very big quarter for the company. In fact, Samsung is predicting that it has earned a record operating profit in the latest quarter of this year. Although, as expected, the predictions do show that the company's earnings growth has slowed.

Earnings growth was expected because the smartphone market in many regions is becoming saturated, and Samsung hasn't really made a hit in emerging markets yet. Samsung is estimating growth of between 22.8% to 27.8% from the 8.06 trillion won in operating profit posted a year earlier, but that is markedly less than the 47.5% rise it saw in Q2. Even so, Samsung is estimating that Q3, which ended September 30th, will have posted an operating profit of between 9.9 trillion won and 10.3 trillion won ($9.2 billion and $9.6 billion). Samsung says two-thirds of that operating profit comes from its mobile business.

This would make Q3 a new record, breaking the previous record posted in Q2 with an operating profit of 9.5 trillion won ($8.86 billion). Total sales for the entire company are expected to be somewhere between 58 trillion won and 60 trillion won, which would be an increase of 11% to 15% year-on-year.