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3Q2013: Samsung reports record-high profit .

Samsung Electronics reports record-high 3Q profit likely thanks to sales of cheaper smartphone

 Samsung Electronics said its operating profit for the July-September quarter rose to another record-high.

The South Korean company said in its Friday earnings preview that its third-quarter operating income rose 25 percent over a year earlier to 10.1 trillion won ($9.4 billion).

The result is slightly higher than the market consensus of $9.3 billion, according to FactSet, a financial data provider.

The maker of Galaxy smartphones said the third-quarter sales increased 13 percent to a record-high of 59 trillion won ($55 billion).

Samsung did not disclose net income or details of its financial performance. Its full results will be announced later this month.

But analysts said robust sales of mid- to low-end smartphones and improved profit from semiconductor businesses were behind another record-high quarter.

There have been worries that the slowing growth of high-end smartphone sales in rich countries would dent the Korean company's profit but the latest result underlined Samsung's expansion in the mobile-phone market in emerging countries.

Sales of the Galaxy S4 smartphone, Samsung's flagship model that made a debut in April, plunged during the three-month period but Samsung probably still sold more smartphones than the previous quarter as consumers snapped up its cheaper smartphones, said Young Park, an analyst at Hyundai Securities.

Samsung announced last month the latest iteration of the Galaxy Note smartphone and the Galaxy Gear, a wristwatch with a touchscreen display that can receive and place phone calls through the Samsung smartphone.

The company is the world's largest maker of smartphones, computer memory chips and TVs. Smartphone sales accounted for about two-thirds of its overall profit in recent years, while demand for televisions and personal computers remained tepid.  

AP