Samsung shrugged off the Galaxy Note 7 debacle and a corruption scandal to post its best quarterly profit in 3 years

Strong memory chip earnings propelled tech giant Samsung Electronics to its best quarterly profit in more than three years, the South Korean firm said on Thursday as it announced its first-quarter results.

Samsung said in a regulatory filing that its January-March operating profit was 9.9 trillion won ($8.75 billion), compared with 9.9 trillion won it estimated earlier in April. That means the results were in line with expectations.

The company's revenues rose 2% to 50.5 trillion won ($44.2 billion), also in line with its earlier estimate.

The solid set of results come after a turbulent period for Samsung.

Last October, the company made headlines after a number of its Galaxy Note 7 devices overheated and caught fire. The flagship smartphone was scrapped as a result of the fiasco.

Samsung heir Lee-Jae Yong is also embroiled in a corruption scandal in South Korea that goes right to the top of the highest levels of government. He has been arrested and charged with bribery and embezzlement. He denies all charges.

Samsung's new flagship smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S8, was not released during this period so it's hard to say how strong sales of the device are.

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and Se Young Lee; Editing by Stephen Coates)