South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics today announced a 39.5% rise in net profit in 2022 to 55.65 trillion won (41.6 billion euros), thanks to a recovery in the last quarter.

The company's sales revenues increased by 8.11TP3Q to 302.2 billion won (226.1 billion euros), although operating earnings fell by 161TP3Q to 43.4 billion won (32.4 billion euros).

Samsung, headquartered in Suwon, south of Seoul, posted a 120% year-on-year rise in net profit during the last quarter of 2022, although operating earnings fell by 70%.

According to the financial report, Samsung's memory chip business was particularly affected by falling sales of integrated circuits and an oversupply that led to a drop in prices.

The tech giant achieved operating profits of 202 million euros in this sector in the last three months of 2022, a fall of 96.9% compared to the previous year.

Sales of the world's largest manufacturer of memory chips and cell phones amounted to just over 70 billion won (around 52 billion euros) between October and December.

In the area of cell phones, Samsung recorded sales of 26.9 billion won (20.2 billion euros) and 1.7 billion won (1.3 billion euros) in operating profits in the fourth quarter.

On January 6th, Samsung announced that it expected a 69% year-on-year drop in operating earnings in the fourth quarter of 2022, as well as an 8.6% decrease in sales revenue.

Samsung justified its pessimism by the fall in the price of memory chips and the reduction in demand for devices due to the economic slowdown, and said it expected rising global inflation to reduce demand for products such as televisions and cell phones.

The South Korean giant prospered during the first two years of the pandemic thanks to strong demand for personal computers, televisions and chips that power computer servers, while the virus forced millions of people to work from home.