Samsung Electronics newly established a semiconductor sales corporation in the US while expanding its equities in a Japanese semiconductor design company. Analysts say that this move is connected to Samsung Electronics’ recent push for the reinforcement of its semiconductor business competitiveness, including the completion of a new building which will house the US Device Solutions (DS) Business Headquarters.

According to the Financial Supervisory Service and the electronics industry on February 15, the Korean electronics giant set up Stellus Technologies which produces and sells storage systems for server semiconductors in the US in December last year. Dan Nolte, a senior vice president of the Samsung Strategic Innovation Center was appointed as CEO of the new company. Samsung Electronics is planning to grow the fledgling company into a storage solution-specialized company for data centers.

Moreover, Samsung Electronics elevated its equities in Future Technology & Service (FTS), a semiconductor design company in Japan to 100 percent. As of the end of 2014, its equities were 41.5 percent. But since then, the company has increased the equities and finally them to 100 percent. Samsung Electronics first obtained its equities in FTS in 2008.

The semiconductor storage for servers which Stellus Technologies handles is a high-volume storage device for companies’ efficient management and maintenance of huge information or big data. Semiconductor storages are catching on with the recent advent of cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT) technology. Stellus Technologies is expected to focus on B2B mainly for corporate customers.

Samsung Electronics’ expansion of semiconductor existences abroad is linked to its recent activities to develop its new future growth engines. Samsung Electronics is planning to make the most of its semiconductor technology by branching out to the electronic automotive parts and IoT markets on a full scale.

On top of that, Samsung Electronics held a global strategy meeting presided with by Kwon Oh-hyun, the head of its DS Division with those related to the domestic semiconductor sector and heads of overseas corporations at the end of last year. It was known that they discussed strategies on new products and marketing in the semiconductor sector.

Earlier, Samsung Electronics completed the construction of a new building for the US DS Business Headquarters in Silicon Valley of the US in September last year. At that time, Samsung Electronics mapped out strategies to enhance its business efficiency via the completion of the new building and create various synergies in order to secure future growth engines in its parts business such as memories, system LSI, LEDs, displays and foundries.

At the moment, Samsung Electronics is the leader with a comfortable lead in the memory semiconductor sector such as DRAMs and NAND flashes. But in the general standings which include the system IC (non-memory) sector, the company is a little behind Intel of the US.

“Storages for servers are a combination of memory semiconductor technology and system IC technology,’ said a representative of the semiconductor industry. “This move is interpreted as Samsung Electronics’ participation in expanding the sever storage market with a positive outlook on the market.”

According to HIS, a global market survey firm, last year, Samsung Electronics surpassed a milestone of US$40 billion in sales for the first time, accounting for 11,6 percent of the general semiconductor market. Samsung Electronics is trying to catch up with first-ranked Intel which recorded US$49.3 billion, accounting for 14.0 percent of the market.

In 2014, Samsung Electronics and Intel were 3.4 percent apart in market shares. The gap narrowed down to 2.4 percent last year. IHS announces global semiconductor market shares of the previous year every April.

By: DocMemory
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