Samsung Electronics said on Friday that it expects to post an almost ten-fold increase in its first quarter operating profits on the back of a rebound in memory chip prices.

The South Korean tech giant said in a regulatory filing that it is likely to post six-point-six trillion won, or around four-point-nine billion U.S. dollars, in operating profits in the first quarter, up 931-point-25 percent from a year earlier. 

The figure is larger than the firm’s operating profits for the whole of 2023. 

Sales marked 71 trillion won in the January-March period this year, up eleven-point-37 percent from a year earlier. It’s the first time the figure has risen above 70 trillion won since the fourth quarter of 2022.

The earnings guidance for the first quarter exceeds the market estimates by more than 20 percent. 

Early this year, the market had expected Samsung to post first quarter operating profits in the four trillion won range, but upgraded their estimates recently as chip prices rebounded following a cut in memory chip production.