Nov 28, 2001 Samsung Electronics rejected on Tuesday comments by Germany's Infineon Technologies AG that suggested the world's top memory chip maker had helped drive down chip prices to pressure smaller players.
Infineon Chief Executive Ulrich Schumacher told the Financial Times newspaper on Monday that a Korean rival had been driving down chip prices.
"Those comments are total nonsense," Samsung spokesman James Chung told Reuters. "Just one company could not decide the price," he said, adding the downturn in memory chip prices had also hurt Samsung.
Analysts said it was likely several of the world's top makers had tolerated a slide in chip prices, banking the fall would hurt smaller players more.
"It's very difficult to lay the blame on any one player in terms of unfair pricing," said one chip analyst, who declined to be identified. "They are all price-setters."
Another analyst at a Western brokerage said fundamentals helped explain a recent price upturn. "Shipment control and inventory adjustments in distribution channels are key factors," he said.
Infineon's Schumacher told the newspaper a Korean firm had held down chip prices but stopped after a recent bailout of local rival Hynix Semiconductor indicated the tactic would not drive Hynix from the market.
"The guy who artificially pushed prices down realized it did not make sense now... If they (Hynix) are going to be around for another four to five months, they realized they would not have enough money to do that," he was quoted as saying.
Hynix officials declined to comment.
The world's top four memory chip makers, including U.S. firm Micron Technology Inc, are battling a record downturn in global chip prices that has forced Hynix creditors to offer it about $11 billion in support this year.
Taiwan's Cando Corp. said on Monday it expected $200 million in Korean bank support to allow it to finalize a takeover of Hynix's TFT-LCD (thin film transistor liquid crystal display) operations by year's end.
Cando leads a joint venture that has pledged about $400 million for the operations in Hynix's largest asset sale.
Schumacher said a recent rise in chip prices, which has helped sector shares, was due to an end to the efforts to hold prices down rather than renewed demand, forecasting no recovery for the next two quarters.
Samsung shares were up 0.43 percent at 231,000 won ($184.50) as of 0516 GMT while Hynix advanced 4.62 percent to 2,035 won outperform a benchmark index (.KS11) off 0.79 percent.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., with 1999 sales revenue of US$22.8 billion is a world leader in the electronics industry. Headquartered in Korea, the company has operations in about 50 countries with 54,000 employees worldwide. The company consists of three main business units: Digital Media, Semiconductors and Information & Communications Businesses.
