Samsung Electronics suffered 400 billion won in losses at its chip manufacturing plant in Texas.

According to foreign media reports, because Samsung Electronics' chip manufacturing plant in Texas has not been fully operational since it was temporarily closed a month ago, Samsung may face huge financial losses. According to South Korea's "Business Review" citing industry analysts, Samsung may suffer about 400 billion won (about 353 million U.S. dollars) in production losses.

According to reports, Samsung’s factory has resumed power and water supply since mid-February, but the factory has not resumed normal operation after equipment inspections. Analysts believe that it will be at least another month before the Texas factory can return to normal.

Industry observers predict that Samsung's plant in Texas will start producing wafers in mid-April, which may lead to further losses in the company's non-memory business in the second quarter of 2021.

KTB Investment & Securities analyst Kim Yang-jae said that considering that non-memory products usually require two to three months of delivery time, we believe that the production schedule of the Austin plant will face four to five months of interruption.

Reuters has reported that due to Samsung’s production problems, Qualcomm’s sales of modems are in short supply, and a contract manufacturer of a major smartphone brand has also confirmed that it is facing a shortage of components from Qualcomm, which will make it cut this year’s Mobile phone shipments.

The shortage of smart phone components occurred after automakers encountered similar shortages. China's economy recovered after the epidemic. In order to reduce procurement costs, automakers were forced to increase auto chip orders after reducing auto chip orders earlier. However, because the production capacity of the process node is occupied by orders from other links, companies cannot purchase enough silicon wafers to maintain continuous production. The occurrence of this situation has forced major US automakers to suspend production.

Samsung's rival in chip manufacturing, TSMC, also plans to build an American chip factory in Arizona. TSMC has allocated funds for this, and the plant is expected to be put into operation within a few years. In order to reduce the impact of the shutdown on the global smartphone market, TrendForce believes that once the S2 production line is fully restored, Samsung will give priority to the production of 5G components. The current interruption is due to Samsung's decision to suspend wafer input to the production line. It is expected that the capacity utilization rate will not reach 90% before the end of March.