Samsung increases investment in the production of flash memory

In order to take advantage of the current high demand, Samsung announced that it will invest 7, 000 million dollars in a semiconductor plant in China to increase the production of Flash memory. Samsung is already the world's largest memory chip maker, and it appears the company wants to move further away from its biggest competitors, Toshiba and SanDisk, the latter now in the possession of Western Digital.

Samsung is already the world's largest manufacturer of Flash NAND memory chips, with 41% market share compared to 18% of its closest rival, Toshiba.

The money will be invested over a 3-year period and will mainly end up at Samsung's Xi'an, China plant, the company confirmed in a statement today.

Flash NAND memory chips are used in a wide variety of devices, including connected gadgets or smartphones. Samsung is the leader in this market, with a global share of approximately 41% in the second quarter of this year. That's more than double what Toshiba has, at 18%.

On the other hand, Samsung is also the largest manufacturer of dynamic random access memory or DRAM, with a 44% global market share. The company is now making strategic investments to improve its capacity and to ensure that its rivals never reach it.

The large production capacity for Flash NAND memory chips that will be made possible with Samsung's new investment will be used primarily to meet the high demand for chips destined for smartphones and other consumer electronic devices.