Samsung has stated plans to strategically invest $205B in the next three years, to expand technology leadership post-Covid. Aside from hiring 40,000 people by 2023, Samsung said the majority of the investment will be in semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, next-generation communication, with logic chip and foundry sectors to get the most benefits. Samsung will also target the early development of advanced nodes to capture the memory sector.
Samsung India has partnered with National Skill Development Corporation under its digital and offline skills initiative. The partnership will result in the training of 50,000 youths from India to equip them with skills to work in the electronics sector. Participants will be school pass-outs and given five-month on-the-job training with a stipend at Samsung retail stores. They will also receive 200 hours of blended classroom programs before the OJT.
Samsung introduced the Exynos W920, a new wearables processor. Being Samsung’s first wearables’ processor made with a 5nm node, it has two Arm Cortex-A55 cores and an Arm Mali-G68 GPU. It will allow for 20% better CPU performance, while 10x better Graphics. The processor will also have a compact size enabling sleeker watch designs. It will be used in the new Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, expected to be unveiled at Unpacked this week.
Samsung Electronics will take part in the Bank of Korea’s simulation test study project on “central bank digital currency (CBDC).” In this test, Samsung Electronics is apparently aiming to see if CBDC works on smartphones. The Bank of Korea has put out a bid for a CBDC simulation study service provider. The project’s overall budget is 4.96 billion won. The CBDC simulation project will be operated by Ground X, a Kakao subsidiary.
Apple, according to the latest IDC estimates, sold 12.9 million iPads in the second quarter of the current financial year, accounting for 31.9 % of the category’s market share. Samsung shipped 8 mn tablets, accounting for a distant 19.6 % of the total market. Although the tablet market was more constrained than Chromebooks, it nonetheless managed to grow by 4.2 % YoY, with 40.5 mn units sold during the period.
South Korean stores of LG will also be selling Apple products including iPhones by August. LG will be leaving the smartphone business by end of this month. The move is going to help Apple, which already holds 20% of the market share in the country, improve its position in S Korea. In May Apple and Samsung collaborated and offered LG smartphone users a trade-in for a new Samsung Galaxy or iPhone along with 150,000 won.
Samsung Electronics, in the April-June quarter of this year, saw growth in profit by 38% due to the strong prices of chips, increase in demand, and reinvestment into data centers. Their operating profit leaped to 11.3 trillion won. Samsung recorded its highest Q2 earnings since 2018. Their smartphone shipments have dropped in Q2 of 2021 to 59 mn from 76 mn in Q1 of 2021. The operating profit of the mobile business is estimated to be 2.9 trillion won.
Samsung has achieved network speed that is 50 times more than 5G in their 6G research. In a company presentation, Samsung announced it had achieved a speed of 5.23 Gbps on a 5G network whereas the speed of their 6G tech is 50 times faster. Samsung expects the completion and commercialisation of 6G by 2028 and mass commercialisation by 2030. Samsung is also exploring XR – a combination of AR, VR, and MR.
