Tech giant Samsung Electronics on Thursday reported its first on-year profit growth in two years but warned fourth-quarter earnings will fall sequentially due to exchange rate conditions and seasonally weaker components sales.

The South Korean firm said third-quarter profit jumped 82 per cent to 7.4 trillion won ($6.46 billion), in line with its guidance. The world's No.1 maker of memory chips and smartphones said revenue rose 8.9 per cent from a year earlier to 51.7 trillion won.

"In the fourth quarter, the company expects earnings to decline from the earlier quarter, as it does not expect the foreign exchange rate to have a positive effect," Samsung said in a statement.

It said the won's weakness against the US dollar led to a 800 billion won gain during the July-September period.

The mobile division's profit rose to 2.40 trillion won from 1.75 trillion a year earlier, lifted by sales of the Galaxy Note 5 as well as new lower-end products which have been struggling to compete with Chinese handsets made by the likes of Xiaomi.

But the chip division remained the top earner for the fifth-straight quarter with a record 3.66 trillion won profit.

Healthy third-quarter returns have boosted hopes that Samsung's profit recovery remains intact, although investors remain sceptical about Samsung's ability to return to the record profits it posted in 2013.

Despite a major overhaul of its product lineup, researcher TrendForce says Samsung's smartphone shipments will shrink for the first time in 2015 due to competition from Apple in the high-end market and Chinese rivals in the low end. – Reuters