Samsung Electronics starts laying off staff in Huizhou

Samsung Electronics is laying off staff at its Huizhou phone factory in Guangdong Province, China, reported Chinese media outlet Caixin, Wednesday.

The Huizhou operation is Samsung’s only remaining phone production site in China. It already closed down a factory in Tianjin last December. Earlier that year, the company also shut down a Shenzhen factory that produced network equipment.

“Due to a challenging market situation and intensified competition in China, we are currently adjusting production volume at Samsung Electronics Huizhou,” the company said in a Wednesday statement.

Established in 1992, the Huizhou factory had 6,000 workers as of 2017. The scale of the planned layoffs is unknown. According to Caixin, the company will receive voluntary resignations in return for compensation by June 14.

Pushed back by local brands like Huawei, Vivo and Oppo, Samsung’s share in China’s smartphone market slumped beneath 1 percent for the first time last year.

By Song Kyoung-son