By Se Young Lee SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is likely to forecast its best quarterly profit in nearly three years on Friday, analysts said, with robust memory chip sales easing the pain of the costly failure of a flagship smartphone. The South Korean firm discontinued sales of the Galaxy Note 7 phones after some of the devices caught fire, warning of a $2.1 billion hit to its profit in the fourth quarter of 2016 due to expenses tied to an ongoing global recall and lost sales. Samsung's operating profit likely rose for a second straight quarter to 8.4 trillion won ($7 billion) over October-December, according to a Thomson Reuters StarMine SmartEstimate derived from a survey of 15 analysts, up 37 percent from a year ago and the highest since the first quarter of 2014.