South Korean electronics giant Samsung Group said Wednesday it would invest over 43 trillion won (38.3 billion dollars) in 2011, in a bid to consolidate its key markets and expand into new ones, DPA reported.
The investment would be a record for South Korea's largest conglomerate, and 18 per cent higher than last year's. Samsung also said it would be hiring 25,000 more people, an 11-per-cent increase.
"Uncertainties surrounding the world economy still persist," the group said in a statement. But the company's record spending on facilities, research and development aimed to "expand its new growth engines" in both established and new areas, the statement said.
The group was to spend 10.3 trillion won on its semiconductor business, 5.4 trillion won on its liquid crystal displays and the same again on its organic light-emitting diode (OLED) production.
It is a market leader in these technologies, which are produced by the group's flagship Samsung Electronics Co.
The market for OLED screens, a newer technology that uses less energy than older liquid crystal displays, is expected to grow significantly. Samsung already dominates this market through the use of OLED technology in mobile phone screens.
Samsung announced in June that it would invest 23.3 trillion won in emerging health care and green technologies over the next 10 years, including solar power cells, bio-pharmaceutical products and rechargeable cells for hybrid vehicles, as well as the energy-saving OLEDs.