Investing.com - Shares of the South Korea-listed index heavyweight Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (KS:005930) traded higher on Tuesday in Asia even after the company said its operating profit in the third quarter fell by more than 50% from a year ago.
Operating profit for the third quarter is expected to be 7.7 trillion Korean won ($6.43 billion), down 56.17% from a year ago, the company announced on Tuesday.
The figure was slightly better than an average analyst forecast of 7.1 trillion won.
The company said its consolidated sales over the three months was 62 trillion won, down about 5.3% from a year ago.
Sanjeev Rana, a senior analyst at CLSA, told CNBC in an interview that Samsung’s third-quarter guidance was “primarily driven by better-than-expected memory shipments.”
“Overall DRAM and NAND demand appear to be doing much better than what the market had expected…It looks like things are improving,” said Rana, adding that CLSA believes 2020 will be a good year for Samsung’s earnings.
Samsung’s shares rose 1.3% by 11:30 PM ET (03:30 GMT).