Samsung Electronics Co. surpassed Intel to become the world's largest chipmaker in the second quarter of 2021. But as Intel announced that it had taken Qualcomm's order last week, Samsung faces even fiercer competition.

For most of the past 30 years, Intel has maintained the No. 1 position in global chip sales and was overtaken by Samsung in 2017 and 2018 only due to a significant increase in memory chip sales.

Samsung attributed the outstanding performance of its chip business to higher-than-expected price increases for DRAM and NAND chips, as well as the release of backlogged demand. Samsung is currently the world's largest memory chip maker and the world's No. 1 smartphone maker.

This March, Intel said it would spend $ 20 billion to build two chip factories in Chandler, Arizona, to enter the field of wafer foundry.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said last week that the company aims to be a top global foundry by 2025. He also announced that he had taken a foundry order from Qualcomm, a major customer of Samsung, and would start producing Qualcomm chips.

According to market research firm TrendForce, TSMC is currently the world's largest foundry, accounting for 55 percent of the global foundry market, followed by Samsung with a 17 percent market share.

Industry sources said: "Samsung's chip business is affected by the memory market price fluctuations. The company needs to invest more in its foundry business to compete with TSMC and respond to the threat from Intel."

According to Samsung's Vision 2030 plan, the company intends to invest 133 trillion won in becoming the world's leading foundry. To this end, Samsung will spend 10 trillion won annually to develop chip foundry technology and purchase necessary equipment.

On July 29, Samsung Electronics executives said in a quarterly earnings call that the company's foundry business sales are expected to grow 20 percent this year.