Samsung signs important contract with Tesla

The Korean technology company has just signed a large chip manufacturing contract, in the context of the market gradually recovering.

Samsung has just signed an important contract in the chip manufacturing sector. Photo: Reuters .

Samsung shares rose after the company announced it had signed a 22.8 trillion won ( $16.5 billion ) contract to produce chips, Bloomberg reported. Samsung suggested the customer was a “major global corporation” but did not provide further details.

The deal is being negotiated with Tesla, Reuters reported, as South Korea seeks partnerships with the United States in areas such as semiconductors and shipbuilding as part of a trade deal to eliminate or reduce potential 25 percent tariffs the United States could impose.

The deal is worth 7.6% of Samsung’s 2024 revenue, the filing said. Shares of the company rose as much as 3.5% in Seoul, their biggest one-day gain in nearly four weeks. Samsung said the contract will run from July 24 this year to the end of December 2033.

Samsung designs and manufactures its own memory chips and also manufactures semiconductors for other customers, which accounts for a significant portion of its revenue. However, the company has recently faced challenges due to a global market downturn and fierce competition from rivals.

Currently, TSMC is leading the foundry (chip manufacturing) segment with more than 50% of the global market share. Samsung is a pioneer in memory (DRAM, NAND) production, but in this segment, the company currently only accounts for about 10-15% of the market share and is trying to attract more large customers to expand its scale.

Pak Yuak, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities, said the latest deal would help ease losses at Samsung’s chipmaking unit, which he estimated exceeded 5 trillion won ( $3.63 billion ) in the first half of this year.

Furthermore, Samsung's Q2 2025 operating profit fell sharply by 56% to around 4.6 trillion won, according to Business Insiders , partly because it fell behind in the HBM (high-bandwidth memory) and AI logic chip segments due to competition from SK Hynix and Micron as well as export restrictions to China.

The company is also launching a 3.9 trillion won share buyback program out of a 10 trillion won plan to shore up investor confidence amid a more than 30 percent year-on-year drop in its shares. News of the program sent Samsung shares up slightly after the announcement.

This $16.5 billion contract shows that Samsung is making a significant step forward, especially when the semiconductor market is gradually recovering after a recession that lasted more than a year.

Source: https://znews.vn/samsung-ky-hop-dong-quan-trong-voi-tesla-post1572223.html