Sony builds new plant in Thailand to significantly increase semiconductor production capacity
🟦 Sony starts operations at new semiconductor plant in Thailand! Meet ADAS and data center demands
Sony has built a new semiconductor plant in the suburbs of Bangkok, Thailand, and started operations in February 2024. The new plant will mainly be responsible for the back-end processing of image sensors for automobiles (cameras for ADAS, etc.) and semiconductor lasers for data centers (for large-capacity HDDs). The investment amount will be approximately 10 billion yen, and the production capacity will increase by 70% compared to the previous level. By 2026, the company expects to hire 2,000 new engineers and workers in partnership with local universities in Thailand.
🟦 Thai Government’s Development of the Semiconductor Industry
Sony needed to expand its production capacity to meet growing demand for ADAS and data centers. Labor costs in Thailand are relatively low, and we decided that we could increase our competitiveness, so we built a new factory in Thailand. The Thai government has been focusing on fostering the semiconductor industry and has provided preferential treatments such as corporate tax exemptions, which has created a favorable investment environment.
🟦Summary
Sony has significantly increased its semiconductor production capacity by building a new plant in Thailand. We decided that labor costs in Thailand were relatively low and that we could increase our competitiveness.
Currently, the labor cost in Thailand is higher than in Japan for the manager class, but since there are government incentives, they probably decided that they could increase their competitiveness.
