Samsung Elec Expects $100 Mln or More Sales from Advanced Chip Packaging Business 

A flag bearing the logo of Samsung flutters in front of its office building in Seoul, South Korea, October 25, 2020. (Reuters)
A flag bearing the logo of Samsung flutters in front of its office building in Seoul, South Korea, October 25, 2020. (Reuters)
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Samsung Elec Expects $100 Mln or More Sales from Advanced Chip Packaging Business 

A flag bearing the logo of Samsung flutters in front of its office building in Seoul, South Korea, October 25, 2020. (Reuters)
A flag bearing the logo of Samsung flutters in front of its office building in Seoul, South Korea, October 25, 2020. (Reuters)

Samsung Electronics expects $100 million or more of revenue from its next batch of advanced chip-packaging products this year, co-CEO Kye-Hyun Kyung said on Wednesday.

Samsung set up advanced chip packaging as a business unit last year, and Kyung said he expects the results of Samsung's investment to come out in earnest from the second half of this year.

Kyung's remarks were made during Samsung's annual general shareholders' meeting.

Samsung's memory chip business seeks to achieve a greater profit share than its market share this year, Kyung said.

Samsung's market share in DRAM chips, used in tech devices, reached 45.5% in the fourth quarter last year, according to data provider TrendForce.

To do this, Samsung seeks to secure a competitive advantage in high-end memory chips required by booming artificial intelligence demand, including mass producing a 12-stack version of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips called HBM3E.

For a future generation of HBM chips called HBM4, likely to be released in 2025 with more customized designs, Samsung will take advantage of having memory chips, chip contract manufacturing and chip design businesses under one roof to satisfy customer needs, Kyung said.

Answering a shareholder question on Samsung's recent setback in the current HBM market compared to rival SK Hynix , Kyung said: "We're better prepared to prevent that from happening again in the future."

Samsung Electronics shares rose as much as 6.04% on Wednesday, and are set for their highest one-day jump since early September after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the AI semiconductor leader is qualifying Samsung's HBM chips for use.

Samsung expects tangible results soon from other memory products being developed for use in AI, including compute express link (CXL) and processing-in-memory (PIM) products, Kyung added.



‘Assassin’s Creed’ Maker Ubisoft Says Regularly Reviews Options after Buyout Report

This photograph taken on February 13, 2024, shows logo of Ubisoft video firm company adorn the main entrance of the company, where a strike call is planned on February 14, 2024, in Montpellier, south of France. (AFP)
This photograph taken on February 13, 2024, shows logo of Ubisoft video firm company adorn the main entrance of the company, where a strike call is planned on February 14, 2024, in Montpellier, south of France. (AFP)
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‘Assassin’s Creed’ Maker Ubisoft Says Regularly Reviews Options after Buyout Report

This photograph taken on February 13, 2024, shows logo of Ubisoft video firm company adorn the main entrance of the company, where a strike call is planned on February 14, 2024, in Montpellier, south of France. (AFP)
This photograph taken on February 13, 2024, shows logo of Ubisoft video firm company adorn the main entrance of the company, where a strike call is planned on February 14, 2024, in Montpellier, south of France. (AFP)

Ubisoft, the maker of the "Assassin's Creed", "Far Cry" and "Watch Dogs" video games, said on Monday it regularly reviewed "all its strategic options", but declined further comment on a recent report of buyout interest.

France's largest video games maker has long been seen as a takeover target and has lost half of its stock market value over the last twelve months. It has been plagued by delays and the underperformance of some of its key titles.

Ubisoft said in a statement that it would inform the market if and when appropriate. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment further when asked by Reuters whether the company had received any approach from potential bidders.

Monday's statement followed a report last week by Bloomberg News that Ubisoft's founding family, the Guillemots, and Chinese tech giant Tencent, were considering a buyout.

Shares in Ubisoft initially rose by up to 6% on Monday after the statement, topping the SBF 120 index, but reversed course and were down 1.8% at 0905 GMT.

The Guillemot family and Tencent together hold close to 25% of Ubisoft's share capital, LSEG data shows, after a deal in 2022 that saw the Chinese group acquire close to half of the Guillemots' holding.

The move capped a difficult period at Ubisoft, marked by a succession of delays of new video games and management changes.

Ubisoft's stock price slipped further last month after weaker-than-expected quarterly sales.

An underwhelming start for its new game "Star Wars Outlaws" followed the postponement of the launch of "Assassin’s Creed Shadows" by three months to February.

Ubisoft had hoped the two games would help turn around its performance as it implements cost cuts to manage its debt.