Reading Into Samsung's Preliminary Q4'15 Numbers

Samsung Electronics published a mixed set of preliminary results for Q4 2015 on Friday, indicating that its operating profits likely grew by about 15% to 6.1 trillion won ($5 billion) with sales remaining almost flat at about 53 trillion won ($44 billion). Although Samsung did not provide specific details of what drove the numbers, it's likely that it benefited from higher shipments of mid-range smartphones as well as better semiconductor foundry sales.