Samsung Electro-Mechanics to supply camera for budget Galaxy

Samsung Electro-Mechanics will increase the number of camera modules for budget model smartphones next year to account for over 10% of its sales next year, the company said.

It is the first confirmation that will be supplying camera modules for Samsung Electronics’ budget model Galaxy smartphones.

More budget model smartphones were requesting high-end camera modules such as those for optical zoom, Samsung Electro-Mechanics said during its third quarter conference call.

The company has begun supplying 3x optical zoom modules with optical image stabilization (OIS) in the third quarter but this will increase to more models of mid-tier smartphones going forward.

This will lead to double digit increase for related camera module products next year, the company said.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics has supplied the 3x optical zoom camera to the recently launched Galaxy S20 FE.

The company is also planning to supply the main cameras of Galaxy A52 and Galaxy A72 next year, people familiar with the matter previously told TheElec.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics also said it plans to increase the portion of multi layer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) for auto-components to 10% of the total by the fourth quarter. It was just short of 10% for the third quarter, the company said.

The North American automobile market was starting to recover in September and demand will accelerate going forward, Samsung said.

Samsung also said nothing has been decided on whether it will sell some of its businesses, such as those for Wi-Fi modules and rigid flexible printed circuit boards (RFPCB) for organic light emitting diode (OLED).

However, people familiar with the matter said Samsung was in talks to sell its Wi-Fi module business to other companies which it had business relationships with.

RFPCB for OLED was also posting 400 billion won in sales per year but is seeing losses of 50 billion won at the same time, which is making Samsung consider exiting the business. It supplies the boards to Apple.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics posted 302.5 billion won in operating income and 2.28 trillion won in sales in the third quarter, a rise of 60% and 3%, respectively, year over year. The company said it saw increased demand for MLCC in the quarter.