Seoul, July 25: South Korea's Samsung Electronics said Friday that second-quarter net profit grew 51 percent compared with the same quarter last year led by its liquid crystal display and mobile phone businesses. "We posted very strong results," Chu Woo-sik, executive vice president of investor relations, told analysts on a conference call.

Samsung earned 2.14 trillion won (US$2.12 billion) in the three months ended June 30, the company said. Sales during the quarter rose 24 percent on year to a record 18.14 trillion won (US$18 billion).

The result, however, failed to meet expectations, sending Samsung's stock price tumbling. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial forecast that Samsung would post net profit of 2.4 trillion won (US$2.4 billion) on sales of 18.5 trillion won (US$18.2 billion).

Shares in Samsung, which released the earnings results less than one hour after the market opened, fell 6.2 percent to close at 576,000 won US$568). Lee Min-hee, an analyst at Dongbu Securities in Seoul, described Samsung's results as "very disappointing," citing weak performance in its mainstay computer memory chip business despite an increase in prices during the quarter.

Also contributing to the stock sell-off was investor disappointment that Samsung did not announce an anticipated share buyback, Lee said. Samsung Electronics Co.

is the world's biggest manufacturer of memory chips, liquid crystal displays and flat screen televisions. It ranks second behind Finland's Nokia Corp.

in mobile phones. Samsung said revenue at its liquid crystal display business grew 41 percent to 4.71 trillion won (US$4.6 billion) from the year before, boosted by demand for televisions and laptop computers.