Samsung Electronics, the world's top maker of memory chips, beat forecasts with a 37 per cent rise in quarterly profit on stellar performances in flat screens and mobile phones, sending its shares up 4 per cent.
Samsung's outlook remains solid thanks to its strength in its TV screens and handsets, lifted by a softer Korean won and robust demand, while a long-suffering chip division is expected to turn the corner by the second half.
Smaller home rival Hynix disappointed the market on Friday with a net loss that was almost 50 percent bigger than consensus. Japanese chipmakers Elpida and Toshiba are slated to release results later in the day.
Makers of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) worldwide are hoping that spending cutbacks from cash-starved chip makers and improving demand ahead of the back-to-school and gift-giving seasons later in the year will help them back into the black.
Supporting the recovery hopes, market research firm iSuppli upgraded its rating on the DRAM market to "neutral" from "negative," citing indications that the worst was over.
Samsung, also the world's top maker of large liquid crystal display (LCD) screens and flat TV sets, posted January-March net profit of 2.19 trillion won.
The technology powerhouse, flagship of the Samsung Group, whose chairman resigned this week over a tax scandal, earned a 1.6 trillion won net profit a year ago and 2.2 trillion won in the fourth quarter.
Shares in Samsung, valued at more than $100 billion, rose more than 4 percent, outpacing the wider market's 1.4 per cent gain.
Samsung said it expected "very little" price decline for DRAM chips in the second quarter, after a 15-month downward spiral during which prices of some chips lost 90 per cent of their value.
Samsung also said it expected prices of NAND flash memory chips, used in gadgets such as digital cameras and portable music players, to fall by only a low single-digit per cent.