The secret's out for Samsung's 2009 investment plan thanks to Chu Yoo-shik, Samsung's top IR officer. Despite stonewalling efforts by every other Samsung official, Chu said his personal opinion was that Samsung would cut down on its capital expenditure, or CAPEX, by up to 30 percent next year, to 7 trillion won.
This caused a stir among industry watchers and even one anonymous Samsung official, who said that it was inappropriate for Chu to talk about a corporate secret like that. Also, the general consensus is that he couldn't have said it as really his own personal opinion. However, another anonymous Samsung spokesman said that Chu didn't deviate from his approved script. This makes one wonder, are Chu's personal opinions also scripted
Chu was quoted as saying his personal opinion was that: "Although it still needs fine-tuning, our CAPEX would be in the 7 trillion to 8 trillion won range next year." Immediately afterwards Chu said: "Although Samsung tries to fix its CAPEX from a conservative point of view due to the current market situation, we are making investment where it is necessary." This is an almost meaningless phrase, but was meant to amend the first personal opinion. He went on to say that Samsung's global strategy is to raise its market share in the cell phone market to over 20 percent this year.
