Smartphones have again driven up the operating profit of Samsung Electronics in the third quarter of this year with the firm expected to break its highest quarterly earnings figure for the fourth consecutive time.

With Samsung planning to release its tentative quarterly earnings for July-September on Friday, the securities firms estimated that the company would record 7.5 trillion won ($6.73 billion) in operating profit.

Samsung is also projected to reach 51.6 trillion won in total sales, which would be the first time for the firm to go beyond the 50 trillion won mark in its history.

Those two figures, which are seen as the market consensus, represent a rise of about 77 percent in operating profit and 24 percent in total sales compared to the same period last year.

The firm topped 47 trillion won in sales and 6.72 trillion won in operating profit in the second quarter of this year thanks to its soaring smartphone sales.

Sales have further risen with the launch of its flagship smartphone Galaxy S3 which has rolled out in 147 different countries through 302 mobile carriers.

The most recent figure has stated that the total sales unit for the Galaxy S3 passed the 20 million mark in early September with its mobile chief Shin Jong-kyun claiming that it plans to sell over 30 million units of it globally within this year.

“The total quarterly shipment of mobile devices is estimated to reach 106 million units, up from the previous projection of 103 million units and the predicted number of global smartphone shipments also rose to 59 million units from 55 million units,” said Lee Seung-woo, an analyst at IBK Securities.

“With the shipment of the Galaxy S3 expected to record 18 million units from 15 million, it is most likely to have increased the sales and average selling price figures for the firm’s mobile business unit.”

IBK Securities set its projection at 51 trillion won in sales and 7.6 trillion won in operating profit in the third quarter for Samsung.

Daewoo Securities offered the industry’s highest projection in terms of operating profit for the world’s No.1 smartphone maker, setting it at 8 trillion won. It also estimated sales to pass 53 trillion won in the third quarter.

KB Investment and Securities also released its outlook of 7.8 trillion won in operating profit and 51.9 trillion won in sales during the term, stating that it has lowered its figures due to the increase of smartphone marketing fees and a drop in the price of dynamic random access memory.

“However, it is enough to confirm Samsung’s competitiveness, which could be called peerless,” said KB analyst Byun Han-joon.

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldcorp.com)