Samsung has today released its earnings guidance for the 2016 first quarter, showing year-on-year operating profit and sales growth following the release of the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge smartphones.
While competition remains intense in the smartphone market, Samsung’s latest flagship offerings may well have helped boost its quarterly figures.
Upon release of its 2015 quarter four results, Samsung had stated that in the premium smartphone segment it “aims to reinforce its market leadership and drive growth with differentiated and innovative products”.
The Galaxy S7 and S7 edge were released last month.
Bloomberg has reported that S7 sales are estimated to reach 9 million units during the first month, triple that of the S6 models in the same timeframe last year.
Samsung’s earnings guidance for the quarter is for consolidated operating profit of approximately 6.6 trillion won (around $7.5 billion), up from 6 trillion won year-on-year, and consolidated sales of approximately 49 trillion won, up from 47.1 trillion won year-on-year.
The operating profit compares to a 5.53 trillion-won average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Growth in the smartphone market could prove difficult this year compared to previous years, with Gartner having forecast that global smartphone sales will, for the first time, post single-digit yearly growth, signalling the end of the double-digit growth era.