Samsung profit in Q4 rises hefty 50 percent

Samsung Electronics Co underscored the resilience of its business when it reported its best operating profit in three years, weathering the death of its fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 with the help of its workmanlike chip and display divisions and cheaper smartphones.

The world's largest maker of mobile devices posted a 50 percent surge in quarterly operating profit after demand from Chinese smartphone brands pushed up memory chip prices and buoyed the unit that makes organic light-emitting diode screens. Samsung also touched up an older phone line-up with new colors and features, helping tide it over in the Note 7's absence.

Samsung is emerging from its biggest corporate crisis, when reports of incendiary Note 7s forced the South Korean company to kill its most profitable gadget.

It still hasn't revealed the results of a subsequent investigation into an episode that cost Samsung more than $6 billion and assured Apple Inc of the lead in premium devices over the holidays.

It's now counting on its next marquee phone to repair its reputation. "Despite the Note 7's vacuum, Samsung acquitted itself well on the back of sound S7 sales," said Lee Seung-woo, an analyst with IBK Securities Co in Seoul.

Operating income rose to 9.2 trillion won ($7.8 billion) in the quarter ended December, its biggest profit in three years, the Suwon, South Korea-based company said in preliminary results on Friday. That compares with the 8.29 trillion-won average of analysts' estimates compiled by Bloomberg in the past four weeks.