Samsung is investing $275M to increase LCD production capacity
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Samsung is going to increase its 7th generation LCD production line and will pay with its own cash reserves. Samsung says that this will help them to meet demand for large size TVs and computer monitors.
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With CES 2008 now just around the corner, Samsung today injected more fuel into a legal battle already revving up among some of the top global players in LCDs and other TV and computer display screens.
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(InfoWorld) - For years, two South Korean giants have dominated the LCD (liquid crystal display) panel industry, but a recent merger in Taiwan has propelled AU OptronicsÂ into the running for the top spot. Fresh competition at the top should ensure LCD makers continue to find new ways to lower prices so they can lure users to buy new LCD TVs, larger desktop displays, and laptop computers with bigger screens. In fact, the big three all continue to invest in new LCD factories designed to lower costs, and they unanimously forecast falling LCD panel prices during the first three months of this year. AU, the world's third largest maker of LCD (liquid crystal display) screens,Â merged with Quanta DisplayÂ late last year, raising its share of the global LCD panel market to nearly match that of Samsung Electronics and LG.Philips Co.Â  Although the company remains in third place, it is just a sliver of market share away from the top, and on Thursday, AU said its work to integrate the new factories acquired in the Quanta Display deal is running smoothly. The company has already turned Quanta Display's operations profitable after two money-losing quarters previously, said Max Cheng, chief financial officer at AU, at the company's fourth-quarter investor conference Thursday. The smaller LCD maker had been suffering against its larger rivals because it couldn't compete as well on cost. In general, larger makers can offer volume discounts to big customers, and gain other cost advantages through mass production. The merger helped propel AU's LCD panel shipments past Samsung Electronics for the first time ever during the fourth quarter. The Taiwanese company shipped 16.6 million large-sized LCD panels in the fourth quarter, and 24.5 million small and medium sized panels, it said. Samsung shipped 15.5 million large-sized panels and 24.8 million small and medium sized panels, according to information on its Web site. The Samsung figures do not include output from S-LCD Corp., aÂ joint venture between Sony and SamsungÂ that produces large-sized LCD panels used by both companies. Large-sized LCD panels are described as those 10 inches in size or bigger, such as panels used as the screen part of a laptop computer, desktop monitor or LCD-TV. Small and medium-sized panels are the screen parts of devices such as mobile phones, and GPS (global positioning system) navigation devices. The shipment figures don't mean AU is already number one in LCDs. The top company, LG.Philips LCD Co., does not break down panel shipments, choosing to give its figure in millions of square meters because the size of panels differs so much. LG shipped 2.3 million square meters of panels in the fourth quarter. Neither AU nor Samsung provide shipment information in square meters. According to market researcher DisplaySearch, part of the NPD Group, LG.Philips ranked first in panel shipments last year, followed closely by Samsung, and then AU Optronics. There are only a few percentage points of market share separating the three. The next competitor listed, Chi Mei Optoelectronics of Taiwan, is nearly 10 percentage points away from first place. By other popular measures used to rank companies in an industry, such as revenue, Samsung comes out on top, with LG.Philips second, and AU Optronics in third. Samsung's LCD business posted fourth quarter revenue of 3.18 trillion Korean won (US$3.48 billion as of Dec. 31, the last day of the reporting period), while LG.Philips' revenue came in at 3.06 trillion won (US$3.34 billion) and AU's was NT$94.65 billion [B] New Taiwan dollars (US$2.91 billion). The nearest competitor to the top three was Japan's Sharp Corp., which posted revenue at its LCD component business of Â¥241.4 billion (US$2.03 billion) for the three months ending Dec. 31. Going forward, Taiwanese companies appear to be more aggressive in their capital spending (capex) plans for this year. In fact, AU Optronics plans to spend more on new factory production lines this year than any other LCD maker, between NT$90 billion and NT$95 billion (US$2.92 billion). The top end of that range is nearly double Samsung's estimate of 1.41 billion won (US$1.52 billion), which excludes spending on S-LCD. Chi Mei has said it will spend NT$75 billion (US$2.30 billion), making it the next biggest spender after AU Optronics. Â
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Samsung&#39;s net income rose to US$2.34 billion from $1.60 billion last year. Sales gained 27.4 percent to $12.9 billion from $9.
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Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. plans to invest 25 trillion won (US$24 billion) in building new semiconductor production lines by 2010, the company said Monday.
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Concern over falling profit margins at Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. grew on Thursday as the company said it was spending more on handset marketing and a top broker issued a &quot;sell&quot; rating on its stock for the first time in years.
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South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest memory chipmaker, said it would invest some 24 billion dollars in building new chip production lines over the next six years.
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Samsung Electronics, the world&#39;s second largest computer chip manufacturer, yesterday said that it would invest Won25,000bn ($24bn) in its semiconductor business by 2010 to generate
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Samsung Electronics expects profit from mobile devices to pick up next year, despite a rating cut issued by an investment bank. During a presentation at the UBS investor conference in Seoul, Samsung
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The chipmaker will post twice the growth of the market average, which will hit $270 billion this year, analysts say.
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South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. expects strong demand and cost cuts to boost second-half profit in its chip business, it said Friday.
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Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. , the world's biggest maker of memory chips, said on Monday it would invest 938.8 billion won ($1.01 billion) to upgrade its memory chip production lines.
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InfoWorld - Samsung Electronics has developed a chip-manufacturing technique able to significantly increase the amount of music, pictures, videos, and other data people can store in future iPods, iPhones, and other devices.
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Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., the world&#39;s largest maker of memory chips, said on Monday it would invest $24 billion in its semiconductor business by 2010.
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Samsung Electronics said its board of directors has approved a plan to invest US$274 million in a second seventh-generation LCD production line at its Asian plant.
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Samsung Electronics has developed a chip-manufacturing technique able to significantly increase the amount of music, pictures, videos, and other data people can store in future iPods, iPhones, and other devices.The world&#39;s largest memory chip maker showed off a 64Gb multilevel cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chip made with an entirely new 30-nanometer production technology. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, and the measure refers to the average size of the smallest features on the chip. The manufacturing breakthrough, which Samsung calls self-aligned double patterning technology (SaDPT), will enable the company to greatly increase the storage capacity of new NAND flash memory chips once the technology is in commercial production.For example, 16 of the 64Gb chips can be combined in a memory card for 128GB of storage space, enough for 80 DVD movies or 32,000 MP3 music files, the company said in a statement.Even more important for users, Samsung was able to make the technology leap without requiring certain expensive new chip making equipment. While moves to smaller production technologies often require investment in expensive new photolithography equipment, the company was able to use current photolithography gear to etch circuits on the silicon wafers. That should ensure low production costs and reasonable prices for end-users.SaDPT technology uses two pattern transfers to create the circuit design of each chip. The first transfer spaces the circuits widely apart, then the second transfer uses that space between the circuits to add another circuit, with the result that the circuitry is more densely packed together.Samsung has applied for 30 patents related to the new 64Gb flash chip, and said it also created a 32Gb chip with the same production technology. The company expects to begin mass production of 64Gb flash chips with its 30nm manufacturing technology in 2009.
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Emerging Display Technologies (EDT), specializing in small-to-medium STN/CSTN-LCD panels, will ramp up its monthly capacity for CSTN LCDs from 30,000 units at present to 70,000 in the second quarter of 2005, according to the company.