Samsung Electronics has delivered market forecast-beating second-quarter earnings as strong demand for server chips apparently offset a slump in smartphone sales amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

In its earnings guidance Tuesday, the South Korean tech giant expected its operating profit at 8.1 trillion won for the April-June period, up 22.7 percent from 6.6 trillion won a year ago.

The amount is far higher than the market consensus of 6.8 trillion won in a survey conducted by Yonhap Infomax on 10 Korean brokerage houses in the last two weeks.

Samsung estimated its second-quarter sales at 52 trillion won in the three-month period, down 7.3 percent on-year, but slightly above the median estimate of 51.6 trillion won.

It plans to announce detailed earnings later this month.

Local analysts said Samsung's semiconductor business likely anchored the company's overall performance in the second quarter as demand for server chips from data centers remained solid with the pandemic-driven stay-at-home economy.

Looking ahead to the third quarter, they said the chip business may not continue its strong growth, but they expected a solid recovery in Samsung's mobile, display and consumer electronics businesses due to recent signs of recovery in demand as countries started reopen their economies.

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