Samsung ships 25 million smartphones in 2010 as mobile sales rise 10% to $37 billion

South Korean conglomerate, and the world's largest electronics company, Samsung Electronics has announced its financial numbers for 2010.

Full year sales were 154 trillion Won ($139 billion), up 13 percent year-on-year.

Net profit was 16.2 trillion Won ($14.5 billion), up 65 percent.

Its telecom division, which accounts for around a quarter of the business, had full year sales of 41.2 trillion Won ($36.9 billion), up 10 percent year-on-year.

Its operating profits were up 5 percent to 4.3 trillion Won ($3.9 billion).

During 2010, Samsung shipped 280 million phones, up 23 percent compared to 2009. Nine percent, or around 25 million, of these were smartphones, mainly based on Google's Android OS.

The average price of a Samsung phone dropped slightly to around $120, while the group's operating margin rose to around 12 percent.

Samsung sold two million of its Galaxy Tab tablets in three months, as well as over ten million Galaxy S smartphones.

Samsung expects this growth to continue in 2011, with smartphone shipments predicted to more than double as it introduces features such as Super AMOLED Plus screens and dual core and quad core processors.

The best performing part of Samsung's business however was its semi conductor and memory division, which saw revenue up 40 percent and operating profits up 391 percent year-on-year. Amongst many other smartphone and tablet clients, Samsung makes the chips and memory that power Apple's iPhones and iPads.

Samsung ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents and short term investments worth 22.5 trillion Won ($20 billion), up 3 percent, and current assets of 61.4 trillion Won ($55 billion), down 3 percent compared to three months ago.

[source: Samsung PDF]