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Choe Sang-Hun of the International Herald Tribune writes:

Samsung Electronics said Thursday that it would spend $33 billion to build nine new chip lines in South Korea by 2012, creating 14,000 jobs and going against a tide of cutbacks at its Japanese rivals, Sony and Sanyo.

Samsung’s latest investment plan followed a pattern that has made the company the No. 1 producer of computer memory chips: investing billions of dollars annually ahead of its rivals so it can develop and make advanced chips earlier and cheaper.

Analysts said Samsung’s expansion plan reflected healthy growth prospects for the chip industry, but warned that cutthroat competition would get worse as rivals tried to match Samsung in investments, driving down chip prices.

By the time Samsung’s investment is completed by 2012, the company said, its annual sales of semiconductors will have almost quadrupled to $61 billion, from $16 billion last year. That would place Samsung ahead of Intel as the leading chip producer in terms of revenue, some analysts said, noting that Samsung’s chip sales have grown twice as fast as Intel’s in recent years…

[Continue reading Samsung to Invest $33 Billion in Making Chips]