Company will add chip outfit positions

Samsung

Samsung’s Austin employment totals 2,500 direct employees, of whom 200 work in its chip design center. Its manufacturing employ- ment is not expected to change much in the coming year, but company spokeswoman Catherine Morse said employment at the chip design center in Northwest Austin will continue to expand.

“We expect continued growth at our design center throughout 2013,” Morse said, adding that the engineering team is working on designs “and development of the latest technologies for mobile application processors.”

Some industry analysts say Samsung also has an engineering team in town working on chips for lowpower servers.

Samsung does not disclose who the customers for its Austin factory are, but analysts say it is clear that they are Apple Inc. and Samsung itself.

The two companies are the world’s largest makers of smartphones and other mobile devices.

The IDC market research firm estimated that Samsung shipped just more than 66 million “smart connected devices” (smartphones, tablets and personal computers) in the third quarter, while Apple shipped nearly 46 million. Together, the companies controlled about 37 percent of the global market.

“The battle between Samsung and Apple at the top of the smart-connected device space is stronger than ever,” said IDC analyst Ryan Reith.

Samsung continues to be a key supplier for Apple, even though the two companies have ongoing lawsuits against one another over alleged violation of intellectual property rights.