Samsung Electronics made its largest-ever investment in research and development (R&D) as well as facility expansion last year.

The company spent about 35 trillion won (A$38.26 billion) on R&D projects in 2024, a 23.5 % increase from a year earlier.

In Q4 2024 alone, it spent KRW 10.3 trillion (A$11.24 billion) on R&D.

The total facility investment rose by 500 billion won to reach 53.6 trillion won (A$58.6 billion) in 2024, also a record high for the company.

For the full year of 2024, its revenue was 300.87 trillion (A$327.16 billion), while the operating profit reached KRW 32.7 trillion (A$35.69 billion).

 

Year-on-year, in 2024, Samsung’s revenue jumped 16.2%, the second-highest revenue in its history. Its profit rose 498% (nearly 5x) too compared to the previous year.

Last year, Samsung’s market share in the global TV market fell to 28.3% from 30.1% in the previous year, and that in the global smartphone market came to 18.3%, down from the previous year’s 19.7%, reported The Korea Herald.

Among some of the big R&D projects it announced last year was its new semiconductor R&D complex (NRD-K) at its Giheung campus.

 

The state-of-the-art facility, NRD-K broke ground in 2022 and will be a key research centre for Samsung’s memory, system LSI and foundry semiconductor R&D.

Samsung says that with its advanced infrastructure, research and product-level verification will all be able to take place at the same campus.

Samsung plans to invest about KRW 20 trillion (A$2187 billion) by 2030 for the complex in an area covering about 109,000 square meters. The complex will also include an R&D-dedicated line scheduled to begin operations in mid-2025.