SEOUL, South Ko­rea-Sam­sung, the world's largest tech­nol­o­gy firm by rev­enue, re­port­ed an­oth­er record-high quar­ter­ly prof­it as cus­tomers flocked to Galaxy smart­phones amid the ab­sence of com­peti­tors, which helped the South Ko­re­an firm out­do ri­vals even at one of the most chal­leng­ing times for the glob­al tech in­dus­try. Sam­sung Elec­tron­ics Co. said Fri­day its net prof­it reached a record-high of 5.2 tril­lion won ($4.5 bil­lion) in the three months end­ing in June, a 48 per cent jump from a year ear­li­er. But the bot­tom line was low­er than a me­di­an mar­ket con­sen­sus of 5.6 tril­lion won based on a poll of sev­en an­a­lysts by Yon­hap In­fo­max. Its sec­ond-quar­ter op­er­at­ing prof­it spiked 79 per cent over a year ear­li­er to 6.7 tril­lion won and its rev­enue rose 21 per cent to 47.6 tril­lion won, match­ing Sam­sung's guid­ance re­leased ear­li­er this month.

The op­er­at­ing prof­it, al­so at an all-time high, marked a 15 per cent rise from the pre­vi­ous quar­ter. Shares of Sam­sung opened 1.9 per cent high­er in Seoul af­ter the quar­ter­ly fi­nan­cial re­sults an­nounce­ment. Sam­sung, the world's largest mak­er of mo­bile phones, tele­vi­sions and mem­o­ry chips, ben­e­fit­ed from run­away de­mand for its An­droid-pow­ered smart­phones, as ri­vals in­clud­ing Ap­ple were slow to re­lease new mod­els. Ro­bust sales of Sam­sung's high-end mo­bile gad­gets, in­clud­ing the flag­ship Galaxy S3 smart­phone, helped Sam­sung tide over a slow­down in oth­er con­sumer elec­tron­ics sec­tors such as tele­vi­sions and per­son­al com­put­ers that have been painful for its ri­vals and com­po­nent sup­pli­ers. (AP)