Samsung Display staffer on Sunday said the Vietnamese government recently approved a US$2.5 billion investment in the factory in the country’s northern Bắc Ninh region. That will raise the firm’s total investment in the plant to $6.5 billion.Samsung Display brings OLED panels manufactured in Korea to the Vietnamese factory and turns them into modules with circuits before sending them to affiliate Samsung Electronics.The move comes ahead of Apple’s plans to equip the iPhone 8 with OLED panels when it is released in the second half of this year, while Chinese rivals OPPO, Vivo and Huawei are also boosting OLED smartphone production.

Now we’re hearing about Samsung wanting to invest even more into OLED technology. A new report talks about Samsung finalizing a deal that would have them invest $2.5 billion in OLED production within the country of Vietnam. While there is still a lot of work to be done before the deal finally happens, they are working on the conditions of the production facility, and the type of tax benefits the facility would be able to bring in.

If everything goes smoothly though, we should see an official announcement made sometime in the first quarter of this year. Samsung actually already invests in OLED panel production within the country, and this would bring the total up to $6 billion. This new deal could even be due to the company’s need to produce more OLED panels for Apple and its upcoming iPhones, but we’ll see the benefit of these investments across multiple markets that utilize OLED panels regardless of whether those rumors prove true.

Source:chosun.com