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Samsung Electronics (OTCPK:SSNLF) sold its full remaining stake in semiconductor equipment maker ASML (NASDAQ:ASML) in the three-month ended December quarter, Bloomberg News reported.
The South Korean tech giant sold around 1.58M shares, or 0.4% stake in ASML, as per a recent quarterly financial report submitted to regulators. The stake was worth about 1.26T won (about $930M) as of the end of September, according to an earlier filing, the report added.
Samsung acquired a 3% stake in the Netherlands-based company for around 700B won in 2012. After about four years, Samsung sold half of its ownership. The smartphone maker has gradually reduced its stake since the second quarter of last year.
The sale stake is part of its efforts to advance into new arenas of chipmaking, the report noted.
Samsung aims to catch up with competitor SK Hynix in high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, chips, which are used to support Nvidia’s (NVDA) accelerators train artificial intelligence, or AI. It is also seeking to narrow Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) lead in contract chipmaking, the report added.