Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. posted a stronger-than-expected first-quarter profit today, with weakness in its core memory chip business offset by strong sales of its newest flagship smartphones.

The company, which is the world’s largest maker of memory chips and the second-largest supplier of smartphones, reported a net profit of 8.223 trillion won ($5.74 billion), up 22% from the same period last year and ahead of the 5.635 trillion won consensus estimate.

It also delivered an operating profit of 6.68 trillion won, up just 1% from a year ago, with revenue coming to 79.14 trillion won, up 10% from last year and hitting a new quarterly high for the company. Both numbers came in just above analysts’ forecasts.

Samsung said its semiconductor earnings fell on a sequential basis for a third-straight quarter. The company has been struggling to catch up with its main rival SK Hynix Inc., which supplies the vast majority of advanced high-bandwidth memory products to artificial intelligence chipmakers such as Nvidia Corp. That explains why revenue in the chip business fell 17% from a year earlier, to 25.1 trillion won, while its operating profit came to 1.1 trillion won, down 42%.

However, the company made up for it with smartphones. The company’s mobile device and network business delivered an operating profit of 4.3 trillion won, up 23%, thanks to brisk sales of its new AI-powered Galaxy S25 handsets, which debuted in January.

Samsung’s other major business unit, the DX division, which includes televisions and home appliances, saw sales increase 28%, to 51.7 trillion won, with operating profit coming to 4.7 trillion won.

The company declined to provide an outlook for the current quarter, saying that the macroeconomic uncertainties caused by recent global trade tensions make it “difficult to predict future performance.”

Samsung’s stock remained flat in early morning trading in South Korea. The shares have risen just over 4% in the year to date.

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