Samsung Electronics announced that it expects a slight decrease of 0.2% in its operating profit for the first quarter compared to the same period last year. This projection exceeded analysts' predictions due to strong sales of smartphones and higher-than-anticipated sales of memory chips. The company, being the biggest memory chip producer globally, forecast an operating profit of 6.6 trillion won for the January-March quarter, surpassing the 5.1 trillion won LSEG SmartEstimate. The information was reported by Heekyong Yang, Joyce Lee, and Hyunjoo Jin, with editing by Sonali Paul.