Samsung Electronics will expand its capex for NAND flash memory to around US$9 billion in 2019, up from about US$6.4 billion in 2018, a recent Chosun Ilbo report quoted industry sources in South Korea as saying.

Samsung will focus mainly on scaling up its 3D NAND chip output in Pyeongtaek, South Korea and Xian, China, according to the report. The industry leader's planned huge spending is believed to be an effort to defend its dominance in the market.

Meanwhile, with its recent announcement of its fifth-generation 3D NAND memory chips, Samsung will be at least two years ahead of its competitors in technology, the report indicated.

In addition, IC Insights warned of overspending by major NAND suppliers in a recent analysis, which said it is no surprise that NAND flash prices have already softened in early 2018. It said the pace of the softening is expected to pick up in the second half of 2018 and continue into 2019.

Samsung, along with SK Hynix, Micron, Intel, Toshiba/Western Digital/SanDisk and XMC/Yangtze River Storage Technology, all plan to ramp up dramatically their 3D NAND flash capacities over the next couple of years. IC Insights believes that the risk for significantly overshooting 3D NAND flash market demand is very high and growing.