Samsung Electronics will Build Plant for Smartphones in Vietnam

Samsung Electronics Co based in South Korea has applied for a new license to invest more than $3 billion for the construction of another factory in Vietnam for smartphones, said one official from the government on Monday.

The electronics giant’s arm in Vietnam plans to construct the factory in the province of Thai Nguyen in northern Vietnam, where it already opened a plant for smartphones in March said an official from the Planning department in the province.

The project is being reviewed said an official, which confirmed a report previously that a few things are left to be fixed.

An official from Samsung said the company with talking with the government of Vietnam about investing as much as $3 billion in its current handset business.

The spending schedule and the amount ultimately to be spent is not yet determined said the company official.

Samsung has increased its production in Vietnam as a way to lower costs and compete better with the smartphones that are lower priced from rivals based in China.

A subsidiary of the Korea based electronics behemoth, Samsung Display, said back in July that it was given approval by regulators to construct a display module plant for $1 billion in the country.

The latest move by Samsung Electronics would bring the total investment pledges for Vietnam in 2014 to over $11 billion.

Mobile handsets and their accessories became the biggest earner of cash in Vietnam in 2013, passing textiles.

Between January and October of 2014, export revenue for Vietnam was $19.2 billion, which was close to 15% of the total for the country.

Samsung’s first plant for smartphones in Vietnam was built with a $2 billion investment and generated more than $1.9 billion in revenue from exports in the first four months it was operating, according to a provincial government spokesperson.

The Vietnamese government, in an official statement in early November said that Samsung’s total revenue was expected to increase by over 67% to more than $13.4 billion in 2015 from the projected amount for 2014 of $8 billion.