Strong earnings for the year's last quarter have been predicted by Samsung Electronics, mainly on the back of the rapidly rising sales of the company's flat screen televisions.

For the fourth quarter of 2009, the company is expecting to post operating profits of between 3.5 Trillion Won ($3.1 Billion, 1.9 Billion Pounds) and 3.9 Trillion Won. Over the same quarter for the previous year, Samsung had posted a loss, before jumping to a profit of 4.23 Trillion Won in 2009's third quarter.

Currently, Samsung is the world's largest manufacturer of flat screen TVs.

The firm's complete quarterly numbers will be announced later during the month. Shares of the company hit a record high during Wednesday's trading , before slipping back again on Thursday.

"Samsung's business has sharply turned around from the second quarter last year", said Lee Min-hee, an analyst at Dongbu Securities in Seoul.

In addition to benefitting from its flat screen TV unit, Samsung is also witnessing strong performance in computer memory chips and liquid crystal displays.