Samsung confirms it will close one of its smartphone manufacturing plants in China

[nir]

Samsung was previously reported to be considering discontinuing operations at its mobile phone manufacturing plant in Tianjin, China, supposedly due to dwindling smartphone sales and rising labor costs. The company didn't confirm the report at the time, though it did say that the "overall smartphone market is having difficulties due to slowing growth."

 

Now, the South Korean tech giant has confirmed to Reuters that it will shut down that facility as it struggles to keep up with competition in the country from local smartphone companies. According to the latest figures from Counterpoint Research, Huawei dominated the smartphone market in China with a market share of 23% during the third quarter of 2018 in terms of both "sales volume and growth momentum." Trailing behind the Shenzhen, Guangdong-based company are Vivo, OPPO, and Xiaomi.

The Tianjin manufacturing plant, which employs nearly 2,600 people, is scheduled for closure before the year ends. Thankfully, affected employees will receive compensation packages and they will be given the opportunity to work at other Samsung facilities.

 

Samsung's latest decision doesn't come as a surprise since it fell off the list of China's top five smartphone vendors in 2016 after maintaining a 15% market share in the country way back in 2013 per Counterpoint. Its smartphone factory based in Huizhou, Guangdong, will continue to operate, nevertheless. That said, only time will tell when that facility may close down as Samsung shifts most of its production to Vietnam and India.

 

Source

[steven36]

They can ship phones out of Vietnam or India  and not have to worry with paying a  tariff tax . The market is fixing to  boom again as they roll out 5G  because only phones will have it is Android tell 2020 tell when Apple makes there 1st 5G phones and Apple is over rated  Chinese made crap anyway .  Plus  Samsung sued  some of  there help for selling trade secrets on how they  make there screens to a Chinese company .  So they have a whole lot of reasons to leave china just because they dont have a marketshare don't mean nothing really, companies  from the USA  make everything from tooth brushes  to computers but if  they keep raising  import tax in the USA  they will all move to somewhere  and these companies have the money to leave if they want   .  Xiaomi sells better in India than Samsung and Apple does way better than Samsung does in Vietnam. Always the smartphone market is very fragmented anyways  because others that dont have much marketshare combined holds the bulk of the market in most places.