HONG KONG (Yonhap) -- Samsung Electronics Co. will continue to record strong earnings this year, largely thanks to its robust sales of smartphones, an investment bank said Tuesday.

Barclays raised its forecast for Samsung Electronics' 2013 operating profit by 5 percent to 39.9 trillion won (US$36.9 billion).

It also raised its estimate of Samsung Electronics' first quarter operating profit to 8.55 trillion won from 8.18 trillion won, reflecting stronger-than-expected smartphone shipments and solid margins.

The investment bank set the target price of a Samsung Electronics share at 2,000,000 won.

"We expect the share price to rally near term, on stronger-than-expected earnings dynamics in the first half of 2013, due to successful expansion of Samsung Electronics' mid-tier smartphone line-up and continued strength in high-end smartphones," the bank said in a report.

It predicted that Samsung Electronics will ship 69 million units of smartphones in the first quarter, compared to 63 million in the fourth quarter of last year.

The figure for the January-March period included 30 million units of high-end smartphones.