IC Insights has revised upward its semiconductor industry capex growth forecast for 2018 to 14% from 8%. The industry capital spending is also forecast to exceed US$100 billion for the first time in 2018, according to the research firm.

After spending US$24.2 billion in semiconductor capex last year, Samsung said its 2018 outlays for the semiconductor group will be "less." However, Samsung spent US$6.72 billion in capex for its semiconductor division in the first quarter of 2018, slightly higher than the average of the previous three quarters. The capex figure is also almost 4x the amount the company spent just two years earlier in the first quarter of 2016. Samsung has spent an incredible US$26.6 billion in capital outlays for its semiconductor group over the past four quarters, IC Insights identified.

Samsung's 2018 semiconductor group capital spending is estimated at US$20.0 billion, IC Insights said. However, given the strong start to its spending this year, it appears there is currently more upside than downside potential to this forecast, IC Insights noted.

SK Hynix is expected to ramp up its capital spending to US$11.5 billion in 2018, 42% greater than the US$8.1 billion it spent in 2017, IC Insights noted. The increased spending by SK Hynix this year will primarily focus on bringing on-line two large memory fabs - M15, a 3D NAND flash fab in Cheongju, South Korea and its expansion of its huge DRAM fab in Wuxi, China. The Cheongju fab is being pushed to open before the end of 2018 while the Wuxi fab is targeted to open by the end of this year - a few months earlier than its original planned start date of early 2019.

Overall, the capital spending story for 2018 is becoming much more positive as compared with the forecast presented in IC Insights' March report, according to the research firm. IC Insights has therefore raised its expectations for 2018 capital spending by 6pp to a 14% increase. "If this increase occurs, it would be the first time that semiconductor industry capital outlays exceeded US$100 billion," the firm noted.