Samsung Electronics reportedly spent $ 44 billion on infrastructure investments in 2017, including building new factories for the production of semiconductors, displays and other equipment, with investment in 2017 almost doubled in 2016. Meanwhile, Both Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Exxon Mobil, two traditional investment giants, combined more than they did last year, up 50% from the $ 29bn spent by CNPC, the second largest investment group.
Samsung Electronics' huge investment in infrastructure also reflects its willingness to expand its production scale in the future, and Goldman Sachs figures show that by 2017, the global investment downturn has ended for four consecutive years, with an increase in investment in technology companies being a major factor. The proliferation of networked devices and the need for sophisticated electronic component manufacturing technologies have prompted technology companies to increase their infrastructure investment, while the development of artificial intelligence technology also requires the creation of a large server room to provide powerful computing power.
Samsung, the world's largest maker of smartphones, will inevitably need to invest more in infrastructure and equipment suppliers for other technology companies such as Apple, Dell, Sony, and Hewlett-Packard Co. Many of the tech companies' smartphones, laptops, And TV products rely on parts made by Samsung.
Avril Wu, a researcher at DRAMeXchange, a world-renowned semiconductor industry market research firm, said: "Samsung has no choice but to invest heavily and Samsung has to continue investing in order to gain more market share."
But capital spending does not mean creating more jobs, in part because of the high degree of automation in high-tech factories, which does not require a lot of manpower, and most of the investment in telecom infrastructure does not require much manpower after base stations and lines have been laid To maintain.
Samsung's $ 44 billion capital expenditure is mainly used to increase the production capacity of its curved screen and memory chips, the latter mainly used in smart phones, store photos and enhance the speed of mobile phones are used to get it.
The current shortage of memory chips makes its price rise a lot, which also makes Samsung in the global technology equipment supply chain plays a decisive role.One analyst at Nomura Securities, said: 'Samsung is like a central bank, which at the same time Avoid inflation and deflation Samsung does not want to see long supply shortages and does not want to see prolonged oversupply.
According to DRAMeXchange, the prices of the two main memory chips, the DRAM used to process multitasking and the NAND used to store data, have doubled in the past two years, while Samsung holds almost half of DRAM's market share, More than a third of NAND's market share, Samsung is planning to add a new NAND line at its plant in Xi'an, China, recently, but Samsung did not reveal more details.
According to estimates by S & P Global Market Intelligence, Samsung will continue to invest $ 110 billion in capital expenditures over the next three years after winning first place in capital expenditures last year.