Samsung Electronics has secured approval to construct a $1 billion manufacturing facility in Vietnam.
Subsidiary Samsung Display now plans to commence construction of the Bac Ninh plant in 2015, Tech Times reported. It will be used to produce display modules for smartphones and tablets.
Samsung is planning the investment in a bid to lower its production costs due to the intensely competitive mobile market.
As well as reducing labor and manufacturing costs, the facility will move the displays closer to the portion of Samsung phones that are being manufactured in the nation, the report notes.
The company has two handset manufacturing facilities near Hanoi that produce an estimated 200 million units per year, or around half of the company's total international handset production.
Samsung is tomorrow expected to report a third straight quarter of declining profit, Reutersreported separately. CFO Lee Sang Hoon has already cautioned that the Q2 earnings will be “not that good”.
Analysts believe that the vendor's recent performance is proof that its profit growth for the past 3-4 years has been anomalously high and is starting to normalize.
With Samsung chief Lee Kun-hee still in hospital following a heart attack in May, analysts are also concerned that the succession plan for the company is still unclear.