By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter
Samsung Electronics is having difficulty finalizing detailed investment plans for 2008 as the corruption scandal involving the Samsung Group deepens, embroiling the group's key business sectors, including semiconductor and flat-panel divisions.
According to industry sources and Samsung officials, Samsung Electronics has yet to confirm the specific timing of its investments into semiconductors, the second phase of its eighth-generation LCD lines and handsets.
Even, worries over a temporary managerial vacuum have risen, as responsible staffers at the group’s investment office were busy tackling the scandal regarding the alleged deep-seated practice of bribery.
``The semiconductor business should capitalize at the right time in order to survive in the highly competitive market,’’ a high-ranking official from Samsung Electronics told The Korea Times Monday, declining to be named.
``Missing the timing means losing our big clients and also overseas companies are reluctant to maintain business partnerships with companies that are in legal disputes,’’ another official said.
Samsung Electronics had earmarked 9.17 trillion won in investment for this year, including 6.84 trillion won in semiconductors. But Samsung invested only 6.64 trillion won in the semiconductor sector of the 10.01 trillion won total a year ago.
``The recent announcement by Toshiba, a Japan-based memory chipmaker, to invest an additional 8 trillion won by 2009 to mass produce advanced NAND flash chips using finer 30-nanometer technology, and Elpida’s alliance with Taiwanese manufacturers to expand the production of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips are significant enough to threaten Samsung,’’ the official added.
Samsung is the world’s largest manufacturer of DRAM chips with a global market share of 28.3 percent in the second quarter, while Hynix and German-based Qimonda and Elpida follow with 20.6 percent, 13.5 percent and 12.1 percent, respectively.
The flat-panel sector that focuses on LCDs _ another key income source for Samsung _ has also been alerted by a possible independent probe of the scandal, which is likely to hamper the group’s decision-making.
Samsung Electronics is engaging in internal talks to build an 11th generation LCD production line to mostly produce TV display panels in the 70-inch segment while revising upward its sales target of LCD TVs by 60 percent to 20 million units in 2008.
``In the flat-panel sector, Samsung and Japanese makers are in a `survival game’ from North America to Asian emerging markets,’’ an unnamed fund manager said.
Samsung Group has allocated 22.6 trillion won for upgrading facilities on its key businesses, up from 20.9 trillion won in 2006.
To soothe uncertainties surrounding the scandal, Samsung Electronics plans to brief some 250 overseas investors in a two-day special meeting from Nov. 28.