According to the Korea Herald, the memory chip industry has fallen into a downturn and prices continue to fall. However, Samsung Electronics expects that the situation will turn better in the second half of this year, and decided to put its second storage plant in Pyeongtaek, South Korea into production in March next year to maintain its market leadership.

According to the report, the new plant in Pyeongtaek costs US$26.4 billion. Recently, Samsung is discussing the supply of water and electricity with Pyeongtaek City. It is said that the plant was originally scheduled to go into production in June next year, and is now expected to advance to March next year in order to take a favorable position in pricing when demand rises.

The new plant will probably produce state-of-the-art DRAM chips that will be used in high-end devices such as folding screen phones. The industry believes that Samsung is preparing for the recovery of memory chip demand next year.

Although DRAM and NAND Flash prices fell significantly in the first quarter, Samsung did not stop investing. Its senior executives predict that memory demand will begin to rebound in the second half of this year, and next year is expected to continue to grow rapidly, and the Pyeongtaek plant will be the key to balance supply and demand.