Samsung sold its entire stake in ASML late last year. The South Korean tech giant does not give a reason, but this was probably done to further boost activities surrounding its own chip production.
Samsung disposed of its entire 0.4 percent stake in ASML in December 2023, Bloomberg writes. It is worth about $930 million based on the share value at the end of September 2023. Bloomberg bases this on a passage in recently published quarterly figures for the South Korean tech giant’s fourth quarter of 2023.
Boosting its chip production
Why Samsung has now sold its equity stake in ASML altogether is not mentioned. As recently as 2012, Samsung held a 3 percent stake in ASML. In 2016, it sold half of its shares. In August last year, the South Korean tech giant also sold a sizable portion of its shares in the Dutch chip machine manufacturer.
At the time, experts indicated that Samsung wanted to use the proceeds from this share sale to further expand its chip production. The tech giant competes firmly with competitor and compatriot SK Hynix in the field of HBM memory chips used mainly in Nvidia AI accelerators. Furthermore, experts say the gap with Taiwanese competitor TSMC needs to be further closed. All these plans require a lot of money, so the sale of ASML’s share can help in this regard.
Also read: Samsung builds new chip production line with money from sold ASML shares
Samsung has good connection with ASML
Last year, Samsung was an important guest during the South Korean president’s state visit to the Netherlands. Then the tech giant, along with rival SK Hynix, entered into a partnership with ASML to ensure the supply of ASML machines to the company.
Back in 2022, the CEO of the South Korean tech giant also visited the chip machine giant. Back then, securing ASML equipment was also the main goal.
21 hours ago
