Samsung Electronics Co Friday said its fourth quarter net profit rose 17% compared with a year ago, the news reports said.

The profit surged mainly as the smartphone sales outweighed pressure from the technology company’s other businesses, which have been hit by falling demand in the developed economies.

The technology company’s net profit for the three months ended December rose to KRW4 trillion (US$3.57 billion) as against KRW 3.42 trillion reported a year ago.

The company’s operating profit and sales were in line with its guidance issued earlier this month, Samsung said in a statement. Its operating profit rose 75.8% to a record KRW 5.3 trillion, from KRW3.01 trillion reported a year ago. 

Meanwhile, its sales rose 13% to KRW47.3 trillion from KRW41.87 trillion from a year ago. Samsung Electronics has also reported a net profit of KRW 13.73 trillion on record sales of KRW 165 trillion for the full year in 2011, the reports said.

The world’s largest technology company by revenue also posted a rise in income as it signed a deal to sell its hard disk drive business to U.S.-based Seagate Technology Inc for $1.4 billion.

Samsung Electronics is a South Korean multinational electronics and information technology company based in Seoul. The technology firm’s smartphone line up has maintained the second best slot in the world market for sometime with its Galaxy S model mobile phone.