A Record High for January-September Period
Samsung Electronics said on Nov. 16 that it invested a total of 15.9 trillion won in research and development in the first three quarters of 2020. The figure was up 600 billion won (3.9 percent) from 15.3 trillion won spent during the same period of 2019. It is a record high for the January-September period.
Samsung Electronics' annual R&D spending is also expected to hit a new record high in 2020. The previous record was 20.2 trillion won in 2019. Analysts say that Samsung Electronics' super-gap strategy, which emphasizes bold investment in difficult times to widen the technology gap with rivals, has been paying off at a time when things are tough.
Samsung Electronics' facility investment totaled 25.5 trillion won in the first three quarters of this year, up 52 percent from 16.8 trillion won a year earlier. Its facility investment forecast for 2020 is about 35.2 trillion won, up 30.9 percent from 2019.
The number of Samsung Electronics employees as of the third quarter stood at 108,998, the largest ever and up about 3,700 from the end of 2019. Samsung Electronics is currently hiring new employees for the second half of 2020.
Samsung Electronics listed Apple, Best Buy, Deutsche Telekom, Hong Kong Techtronic and Verizon as its top five corporate customers. They account for about 13 percent of Samsung Electronics' sales.
China's Huawei, which was the fifth-largest corporate customer in the second quarters, did not make the top five in the third quarter. U.S. home appliance retailer Best Buy re-entered the top five club as demand for TVs and household appliances exploded mainly in developed markets such as the United States and Europe after a slump ignited by the spread of the COVID-19 virus.