SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung Electronics says its October-December operating profit jumped 64 percent to a record high.

In its earnings preview Tuesday, the South Korean company put its operating profit at 15.1 trillion won ($ 14.1 billion) for the final three months of last year, compared with 9.2 trillion won a year earlier.

The result missed expectations. Analysts polled by financial data firm FactSet expected 16.2 trillion won in operating profit.

Fourth-quarter sales rose 24 percent to 66 trillion won ($61.8 billion).

The results put Samsung's annual operating profit and sales at historic highs.

The stellar financial achievement, thanks to the surge in prices of memory chips, has coincided with Samsung's management crisis. Its de facto leader Lee Jae-yong is fighting at an appeals court to overturn his five-year prison sentence for bribery.