Seoul, Jul 7 (IANS): Riding on the huge success of its Galaxy S smartphone series, South Korean giant Samsung on Thursday announced that its operating profit rose to its highest level in about two years.

The company earned 8.1 trillion Korean won ($7 billion) in operating profit in April-June period. The consolidated sales likely rose 3 per cent to about 50 trillion won from 48.5 trillion won a year earlier.

Improvement in smartphone sales as well as a weaker won against the dollar helped push up the profit, media reports said.

According to The Australian, the profits lend further evidence that the worst of the company's recent struggles may be over, thanks to the sustained popularity of the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge.

Samsung sold the most number of smartphones worldwide in the first quarter of the year and is expected to sell 320 million smartphones by the end of the year, a new report said recently.

According to US-based market research company IC Insights, buoyed by the strong sales growth of Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, Samsung sold 81.5 million smartphones, followed by Apple with 51.6 million smartphones -- in the first quarter.

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 device has also topped the 2016 American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) poll.

According to the annual poll comprising 12,710 people, Samsung Galaxy Note 5 phablet has a rating of 86 out of 100, 9to5mac.com reported recently.

The high-end smartphone market is expected to grow 19 per cent in 2016 from 15 per cent in the previous year as more and more customers are upgrading to premium devices from top brands like Samsung, Apple and OnePlus, another report said recently.

While Samsung and Apple will continue to be strong players, new brands such as Gionee, Huawei, Vivo and Lenovo will make some commendable inroads, said the report released by the market research firm CyberMedia Research (CMR).

Samsung and Apple increased their market share in 2015 (in the above Rs 20,000 price band) to 44 per cent and 27.3 per cent, respectively.