Seoul, Jan 7 (IANS): Samsung Electronics on Friday said it is likely to post record quarterly sales in the fourth quarter of last year, boosted by its solid semiconductor business.

The company expected the sales to hit 76 trillion won ($63.1 billion) in the September-December period, up 23.5 per cent from a year earlier, it said in the earnings preview.

Operating profit likely reached 13.8 trillion won in the fourth quarter, up 52.5 per cent from the previous year.

If the tentative figures stand, the sales would mark the largest ever for the world's biggest memory chip and smartphone maker, following the previous record quarterly high of 73.9 trillion won three months ago.

For all of 2021, the tech giant is expected to have registered record annual sales of 279 trillion won, up 17.8 per cent from the previous year's 236.8 trillion won. The cumulative operating profit for the year is likely to stand at 51.6 trillion won, up 43.3 per cent from 2020 and the third-largest ever.

The fourth-quarter operating income estimate, however, missed the market consensus of 15.2 trillion won compiled by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data arm of Yonhap News Agency.

Compared with the third quarter, the operating profit shrank 12.8 per cent, while the sales rose 2.7 per cent, according to the estimates.

Friday's guidance did not include breakdown figures for its respective business divisions. Samsung will release the full earnings result later this month.

Analysts said strong demand for server memory chips and a less-than-expected fall in DRAM and NAND flash average selling prices likely helped buoy the overall performance.