Anchor Lead: South Korean giants Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics both announced that they will post stronger than expected earnings for the second quarter, one largely on the back of global demand for high performance semiconductors and the other thanks to improving consumer sentiment.
Our Koo Heejin breaks down the figures.

Report: Samsung Electronics forecast a surge in second-quarter earnings, expecting a 15-fold increase in operating profits, due largely to higher prices and brisk demand for powerful computing chips amid an artificial intelligence boom.

The South Korean tech giant said in its preliminary earnings report Friday that it expects to post ten-point-four trillion won, or seven-point-five billion U.S. dollars, in operating profits in the second quarter, up one-thousand-452 percent from a year earlier. 

It marks the first time in seven quarters Samsung will see operating profits surpass ten trillion won. The second-quarter estimate is also larger than the firm’s operating profits for the whole of 2023.

Market observers attributed the stellar earnings by the world’s largest memory chipmaker to a hike in prices of high quality DRAM and flash memory chips, essential in the field of artificial intelligence.

Sales are expected to reach 74 trillion won in the April-June period, up 23-point-31 percent from a year earlier. 

The LG Electronics also announced the same day that it will see record earnings for the second quarter, buoyed by "balanced qualitative growth" in its main household appliance business and business-to-business(B2B) activities, considered to be a new growth engine.

LG, one of the world’s largest home appliance and TV makers, tentatively disclosed nearly one-point-two trillion won, or 870 million U.S. dollars, in operating profit between April and June, up 61-point-two percent from a year earlier.

Both tech giants’ earnings exceed market expectations.

Sales at LG Electronics jumped eight-point-five percent on-year to 21-point-seven trillion won.
Koo Heejin, KBS World Radio news.