Samsung Electronics Co.'s investment in its semiconductor manufacturing over a three-year period is expected to be far higher than its American and Taiwanese rivals, an industry report showed Thursday.
The South Korean memory chip giant's combined capital expenditure from 2017 to 2019 for its semiconductor business is expected to be US$65.8 billion, 53 percent more than its American rival Intel, the next highest spender over the period, according to market researcher IC Insights.
Samsung's 2017-2019 semiconductor spending is predicted to be more than double the $30.8 billion by all indigenous Chinese suppliers combined over the same period, the research agency said.
Samsung plans to increase its investment by 81 percent in the fourth quarter from a quarter earlier to $7.9 billion, which exceeds its previous quarterly high of $6.9 billion two years earlier, the researcher said.
Taiwanese foundry leader TSMC is set to increase its capital expenditures by 64 percent to $5.1 billion in the October-December period from three months earlier, also an all-time high for the company's quarterly spending, it noted.
"It appears that the company is very serious about staying well ahead of the new China memory startups and competing with TSMC at the leading edge of logic technology," IC Insights said in a report. (Yonhap)