Samsung has announced a 11.3tn won ($9bn) share buyback after posting its first quarterly profit in two years.

The South Korean firm made 7.39tn (€5.3bn) Korean won in operating profit during the third quarter, this was up from a disappointing return of 4.1 tn won (€3.3bn) in the corresponding quarter in 2014.

The company's share price bounced overnight - jumping by 4% as the results were announced.

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The struggles of the firm's phone division have been well documented as Samsung has lost the ground which it gained when Apple missed out on the 'large phone' trend with its iPhone 5.

The runaway success of the iPhone 6 has firmly tipped the balance back in the favour of the Californian company.

Samsung has operations in a broad range of areas, it has become increasingly reliant on its semiconductor division.

When this part of the business is taken in isolation, its profits have increased by 62% in one year.

It is a leading manufacturer of memory chips, and has lucrative contracts to produce logic chips for a number of companies, including Apple.