South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co said yesterday it will invest 200 billion won (US$216.4 million) to boost production of mobile phone handsets in South Korea. The company also said it is considering Vietnam for its next overseas facility.
The company, the world's third-largest handset maker, will increase output at its Gumi, South Korea plant to 75 million units this year from 69 million last year, the company said in a statement.
The Gumi plant, Samsung's only domestic handset facility, is about 260km southeast of Seoul.
The investment will be used to transform the facility into a research and development as well as a "manufacturing hub," Samsung said.
Separately, Samsung spokesman Anthony Lee said the company is considering several sites, including Vietnam, for its next overseas plant.
"Vietnam is one of the sites we are looking into but we haven't finalized our plans,'' Lee said.
Lee's comment came after South Korea's mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo newspaper yesterday reported that Samsung will establish a handset manufacturing plant in Vietnam by next year. The paper cited an industry source as saying Samsung decided to build the facility there because of cheaper labor costs.
Samsung already has handset facilities in China, India and Brazil.
Samsung denied yesterday a Taiwanese newspaper report that said the South Korean company plans to order handsets from Hon Hai Group (
"The report is groundless," Lee said by telephone from Seoul.
Samsung plans to order mobile phones for the first time and the company selected Hon Hai Group as a contract manufacturer, Taipei-based Apple Daily reported yesterday, without citing anyone.
Hon Hai may assemble 2.7 million to 3 million handsets a year for Samsung, according to the report.
Samsung trails Finland's Nokia Corp and Motorola Inc of the US in mobile phone sales.
Last year, Samsung produced 130 million mobile handsets -- 80 million from the Gumi plant, 45 million from its factories in China and the rest from production facilities elsewhere, it said.
In addition to phones, Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung makes memory chips, liquid crystal displays, and home appliances.
Telecommunications equipment and mobile handsets accounted for 32 percent of Samsung's total sales in the first quarter of this year.
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