SEOUL, April 8 (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics ( SSNLF )

on Tuesday estimated a 0.2% drop in first-quarter

operating profit from a year earlier, beating analysts'

estimates on solid smartphone sales and better-than-expected

sales of memory chips.

The world's largest memory chipmaker estimated an operating

profit of 6.6 trillion won for the January-March period, versus

a 5.1 trillion won LSEG SmartEstimate.