Samsung’s foundry business is nearing a profitability inflection point, yet it is reluctant to be weighed down by depreciation costs, with financial performance prioritized over catching up in competition.

Samsung Electronics has installed two High NA EUV lithography systems for its foundry business, but is taking a cautious approach to delaying their deployment to mass production lines. The core reason is that the foundry division is currently seen as one of the candidates to return to profitability as early as the fourth quarter of this year. After years of losses, rushing to fully deploy such expensive equipment would significantly increase fixed costs including depreciation and operating expenses. In other words, the profitability inflection point is imminent, and accelerating capital expenditure would instead delay this milestone. Meanwhile, Samsung’s 2-nanometer process yield is reported to have reached around 55%, close to the roughly 60% threshold widely considered by the industry to be sufficient for stable mass production. Thus, the issue is not that process maturity is insufficient to support High NA EUV. South Korean media reports that Samsung is maintaining a conservative capital allocation strategy, minimizing equipment spending until its foundry business has a clearer path to sustainable profitability. This strategy reflects Samsung’s pragmatic trade-off in the advanced process race: its technological and equipment capabilities are already in place, but financial discipline takes precedence over rushing to catch up.