[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics has reportedly been running an investment firm in the semiconductor sector in San Jose, California.
The investment firm, Samsung Oak Holdings, was incorporated on June 6 in the area, but its business purpose had not publicly been disclosed.
Samsung Electronics workers pose with a NAND flash memory chip wafer at the firm’s factory complex in Xian, China.
A Samsung official was quoted by a Korean news outlet as saying “Samsung Oak Holdings is a holding firm that mainly invests in start-ups or ventures for Samsung’s device solution division.”
Samsung’s DS division is in charge of four businesses -- memory chips, system large-scale integration, liquid-crystal displays and storage systems.
Samsung did not specifically say the California-based holding company is focused on making investments in chip businesses, but market watchers speculated that it is aimed at beefing up Samsung’s capacity in the non-memory sector, where Samsung lags behind other rivals such as Qualcomm.
Across industrial sectors, the tech giant has been ratcheting up its efforts to acquire global companies.
High-end built-in electronics firm Dacor, cloud services provider Joyent and ad tech firm AdGear are some of the latest acquisitions of Samsung this year.
By Kim Young-won (
wone0102@heraldcorp.com)
