Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) plans to increase chip production capacity at its largest semiconductor plant next year, despite forecasts of an economic slowdown, a South Korean newspaper reported late on Sunday.
The move contrasts with the scaling back of investment by rival chipmakers amid falling demand and a glut of chips.
Analysts have said that Samsung’s persistence with investment plans will likely help it take market share in memory chips and support its share price when demand recovers.
Samsung plans to expand its P3 factory in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, by adding 12-inch wafers capacity for DRAM memory chips, the Seoul Economic Daily reported, citing unnamed industry sources.
It will also expand the plant with additional 4-nanometre chip capacity, which will be made under foundry contracts – that is, according to clients’ designs – the paper said.
P3, which started production of cutting-edge NAND flash memory chips this year, is the company’s largest chip manufacturing facility.
Samsung is planning to add at least 10 extreme ultraviolet machines next year, the newspaper said.
Samsung declined to comment on the report.
In October it said it was not considering intentionally cutting chip production, defying the broader industry’s tendency to scale back output to meet mid- to long-term demand.
“We plan to stand behind our original infrastructure investment plans,” Han Jin-man, executive vice president of memory business at Samsung, said then.
