Will Samsung IR Officer Drop the Other Shoe?
By Kim Yoo-chul
Technology Reporter
"We will invest 7 trillion won in memory chips this year as planned."
"We will scale down our investment in memory chips."
These two contrasting statements came from Samsung Electronics not in the space of months but over a period of just 10 days.
Even if the down market the world's largest memory chipmaker faces is taken into account, it appears to be a bit of a wide swing, causing investors to scratch their heads, not knowing which statement better reflects Samsung's position.
On Oct. 14, Kwon Oh-hyun, Samsung's chief chipmaker, told reporters his company will stick to this year's 7 trillion-won investment plan. He was attending a Korean electronics fair held at the KINTEX convention center, north of Seoul.
Ten days later, Samsung's Chief IR Officer Chu Woo-sik went back on Kwon's remarks at its third quarter earnings conference.
"Investors and some Samsung insiders were surprised. Samsung normally doesn't change publicly announced decisions," a Samsung spokesman said, Wednesday. "It is a rare case."
There is another case showing Samsung stepping on its own coattails.
Samsung said Wednesday its plan is to directly invest in an 11th-generation liquid crystal display (LCD) plant, leapfrogging 10th-generation plant construction.
"We will migrate straight to the 11th-generation technology," Chang Won-kie, executive vice president of the LCD business said in time for the FPD International 2008, a flat-panel display expo being held in Yokohama, Japan.
It was in July that reports had claimed this but Samsung dismissed it. IR officer Chu also denied it, leading some newspapers to print his denial.
It turned out that Samsung has been cutting its LCD panel production by as much as 5 percent since August to tackle rising inventories and declining demand for pricey TV sets amid the deepening global economic woes.
Chu had insisted Samsung didn't have any plan to slow down its LCD production. Samsung is the world's No. 1 LCD supplier so its word draws the attention of investors worldwide.