Samsung Electronics said Thursday its net profit advanced 13.55 percent on-year in the first quarter, helped by robust sales of its flagship smartphones. Net income came to 5.25 trillion won (US$4.56 billion) in the January-March period, compared with 4.62 trillion won from a year earlier, Samsung said in its regulatory filing.

Sales gained 5.65 percent on-year to 49.7 trillion won in the first quarter, and its operating profit moved up 11.65 percent to 6.67 trillion won.

Samsung said that its first quarter saw overall earnings growth led by the early launch and successful sales of the flagship Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, improved memory product mix, expanded 14nm supply of System LSI products and increased sales of OLED panels.

The company said it sold 92 million units of handsets in the first quarter, along with 6 million units of tablet PCs. Smartphones accounted for 80 percent of the amount.

In the first quarter of 2015, Samsung said it sold 99 million units of handsets.

For the Semiconductor business, despite weak memory demand due to seasonality, the Memory Business achieved solid earnings by expanding sales of high value-added products, while continuously reducing costs through technology migrations for DRAM and NAND. Earnings for the Systems LSI Business increased YoY led by increased demand for 14nm products while QoQ earnings decreased.

Overall earnings of the Display Panel business decreased due to a sharp decline in LCD panel earnings although earnings of OLED panels improved mainly driven by the Galaxy S7. The LCD business experienced temporary yield issues while adopting new process technology as well as TV panel price decline.

The IT & Mobile Communications (IM) Division saw a substantial earnings improvement both YoY and QoQ mainly driven by the early launch of Galaxy S7 and its strong sales and improved cost efficiency through the streamlining of mid-to-low-end smartphone lineups. Although the company had a one-time royalty settlement expense in the quarter, the impact on operating profit was equivalent to less than 1 percent of IM revenue.

The Consumer Electronics (CE) Division achieved significant earnings growth YoY led by expanded sales of premium TV models such as SUHD TV and Curved TV in developed markets, and also a notable sales increase of premium home appliance products in North America.

In the second quarter, the company expects its solid performance to continue led by steady earnings in the Mobile and Semiconductor businesses plus improvement of the CE and Display Panel businesses.