Samsung made a ton of cash even though its flagship phones were a fiery disaster

If you only read the headlines, you'd think Samsung was in a tailspin.

Its Galaxy Note 7 flagship phone, heralded as a true competitor to Apple's iPhone, was a disaster. Battery fires forced Samsung to stop selling the phones and recall them entirely. Seemingly ever single flight around the world for months surrounding the situation included a warning: No Samsung Note 7s.

Things weren't any better elsewhere in the company. Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman and de facto head of Samsung, was arrested in February on corruption allegations involving the president of Korea.

It's hard to think of a more brutal one-two punch. Turns out, Samsung has a pretty strong chin.

The electronics manufacturer posted extremely good first-quarter earnings on Thursday, highlighting the size and diversification within the company.

Samsung's phones might be it's most recognizable consumer product, but the company also makes boatloads of cash off the production of memory chips as well as televisions. The company made about $8.8 billion in profit in the first three months of 2017.

Even with the battery issues, smartphones remained a bright spot for Samsung, highlighting that the problem may have proved to be a short-lived media headache more than anything else. Preorders for its upcoming S8 smartphone set a record for the company.

Which is all to say — it's not good for companies to generate bad headlines, but sometimes that's not the whole story. Uber, Pepsi, United Airlines, and plenty of other companies are dealing with PR problems, all entirely self-inflicted. Uber in particular saw its issues lead to a #DeleteUber campaign — but even that seemed to have hardly made a dent.

Sure, Samsung would prefer that its phones don't catch on fire or that its leaders get arrested. It would have made more money if the Note 7 remained on sale. But the company's issues haven't had a material impact on its business — and that's the bottom line.