Toshiba quarterly profit jumps 57 percent

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp, the world's No.2 producer of NAND flash memory chips for smartphones, posted a 57 percent increase in operating profit for the April-June quarter compared to a year ago, boosted by growth in its solar, nuclear and railroad instrument sectors.

Toshiba's operating profit of 39.5 billion yen (227 million pounds) was a record high first-quarter result, but below expectations of 44.9 billion yen, the mean of seven analysts' estimates according to Thomson Reuters StarMine.

The company kept its operating profit target for the year to March 2015 unchanged at a record 330 billion yen.

Continued strong demand for smartphones, especially in China, is expected to boost sales of its NAND flash memory chips, where Toshiba ranks second globally behind South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

Toshiba, however, reported a 36.6 billion yen operating profit in its electronic devices, a 13.2 billion yen decrease from last year.

NAND memory chips are used in smartphones, cameras and other mobile devices to store music, pictures and other data.

Toshiba is currently extending its factory for NAND chips in Yokkaichi, western Japan.

(Reporting by Teppei Kasai and Yoshiyasu Shida; Editing by Matt Driskill)