Samsung posts record profit of W8.84 tril.

Samsung Electronics said Friday that its operating profit nearly doubled to a record high of 8.84 trillion won ($8.3 billion) for the fourth quarter of last year from a year earlier on the back of brisk smartphone sales.

Its net profit jumped 75.6 percent to 7.04 trillion won during the same period, with revenue of 56.06 trillion won, up 18.5 percent from the same period the previous year, the company said in a regulatory filing.

The robust performance between October and December brought sales figures for the full year to 201.1 trillion won, the first time that the firm broke the 200 trillion won mark. Its annual operating profit also hit a record high of 29.05 trillion won.

The performance was mainly driven by the IT & Mobile Communications unit, which generates more than 60 percent of Samsung’s overall operating profit, which stood at 5.44 trillion won during the fourth quarter.

The firm sold more than 30 million Galaxy S IIIs and 5 million Galaxy Note IIs for the first 11 months of last year.

“Despite the continued economic troubles in Europe and fiercer competition, we could weather such difficulties thanks to advanced technologies,’’ company spokesman Shin Young-june said.

The Korean company expects business environments to remain unfavorable through 2013 due to lingering uncertainties caused by currency volatility and the rise of budget phone makers but it has no plans to cut facilities investment.

“We will adjust our corporate capital spending in a flexible manner depending on the global economy and supply and demand circumstances for information technology products. However, the company’s capital spending is likely to be similar to last year’s level,” another Samsung official said.

Samsung invested 23 trillion won in facilities last year. During the fourth quarter alone, it said it invested 4.4 trillion won including 2 trillion won for semiconductors and 1.2 trillion won for displays.

“We expect the overall demand for conventional digital items to decrease this year. But Samsung sees constructive growth in smartphones and tablets from emerging to developed markets this year as well,’’ said the spokesman.

During a conference call to analysts and institutional investors, the firm said most of this year’s investment will go into components such as advanced displays, mobile application processors and memory chips.

“We will manufacture our Exynos 5 Octa processors based on a finer 28-nano processing technology and Samsung plans to apply highly-advanced 14-nanomter chip-making technology within this year,’’ it said during the call.

“Of the total logic chip capacity, mobile applications ― the vital parts to power Web-connected devices ― will take up 60 percent, while the remaining 40 percent will be based on designed chips ordered from clients.’’

Samsung cited a rapid rise of budget Chinese smartphone makers as one of the key threats down the road.

“Chinese budget smartphone makers are growing and we will release other variants of our Galaxy smartphones and tablets soon. By strengthening Samsung’s brand awareness, we will try our best to keep our bottom line in smartphones by launching affordable devices,’’ the company added.

Samsung said that it plans to sell as many as 510 million devices this year. Of them, smartphones will account for as many as 390 million, according to Samsung officials.

They said the company will expand its tablet business by double this year as it sees a steady rise in tablet users. Samsung is preparing to launch a 6.3-inch Galaxy Note III in the latter half of the year.

Shares of Samsung closed at 1,417,000 won on the Seoul bourse Friday, down 36,000 won from the previous day. <The Korea Times/Kim Yoo-chul>