Seoul, July 25: South Korea's Samsung SDI, the world's largest maker of TV and computer screen tubes, posted a 7.7 per cent rise in second-quarter net profit on Thursday saying World Cup soccer spurred TV sales. Samsung said it ran factories at full steam in June to feed frenzied demand for televisions worldwide during the World Cup finals hosted by South Korea and Japan.

Net profit rose to 172.2 billion won ($147.4 million) on sales of 1.62 trillion won, up 24 per cent.
"We operated TV screen lines at 100 per cent capacity to meet the World Cup demand," said spokesman Park Hyung-do. "Our new businesses for digital screens, handphone LCD displays and rechargeable batteries also grew strongly in the second quarter."

Products such as cathode-ray TV tubes and colour picture tubes (CPT) for computer monitors also fared well, Park said.
Samsung SDI is the world's largest producer of both and saw a rise in demand from PC makers seeking CPTs because of rising prices for more advanced TFT-LCD panels. Bureau Report