Samsung, the once global tech giant, is facing an unprecedented predicament.
From screen manufacturing to chip foundry, Samsung was once the industry leader, and its R&D and production capacity of DRAM and NAND flash memory made it firmly in the top spot in the memory chip market. However, a series of changes in recent years have caused Samsung's performance to suffer a waterloo.
In the past, Samsung's diversified business strategy has enabled it to achieve significant results in many fields, with strong performance in industrial lines such as mobile phones, SoC chips, memory chips, screens, and home appliances.
However, since the rise of Chinese companies such as Huawei, as well as a series of mistakes by Samsung itself in the Chinese market, its mobile phone business has gradually lost its big cake in the Chinese market. The memory chip business has also been restricted from free shipments to China due to the U.S. revision of chip rules, resulting in a sharp decline in revenue.
To add insult to injury, the recent "Micron incident" has dealt a heavy blow to Samsung. Micron has been banned from selling in the Chinese market due to security threats, while South Korean companies such as Samsung have been warned by the US not to fill the market share vacated by Micron.
At the same time, the U.S. side also filed a lawsuit against Samsung for "patent infringement", and Samsung eventually lost the lawsuit and was fined heavily. This series of events led to a wave of "nine consecutive declines" in Samsung's net profit, with an astonishing decline.
Faced with such a predicament, Samsung and South Korea** began to seek a way to break through. In order to revive the Chinese market, Samsung announced that it will invest in the construction of a chip factory in Xi'an, China, in an attempt to regain some market share. However, there are still many uncertainties about whether this move can effectively help Samsung turn around.
First of all, China now has the ability to independently develop and manufacture high-end chips, as evidenced by the return of Huawei's Kirin chips.
In the future, China's dependence on external chips** will gradually decrease, which will undoubtedly bring greater competitive pressure to foreign companies such as Samsung. Secondly, in the field of memory chips, China's Yangtze River Storage and Changxin Storage and other enterprises are developing rapidly, and their technology and production capacity are constantly improving, and they are expected to become the world's leading chip manufacturers in the future.
Therefore, although Samsung realized the importance of the Chinese market and began to take measures, it is not easy to rely on the Chinese market to turn around again.
In the face of the gradual formation of China's high-end semiconductor industry layout and the strong rise of local enterprises, Samsung needs to show more sincerity and strength to meet the challenges.
Otherwise, in today's increasingly fierce global technology competition, Samsung's situation may be even more difficult.