AI riches turn Samsung factory town into luxury hotspot

{"text":[[{"start":7.95,"text":"Choi Mi-sook has never seen anything like the race for property in Dongtan. In the past two weeks, the estate agent said, the going rate for a small apartment has gone up by Won200mn ($132,000) — if you can find anyone willing to sell."}],[{"start":25.2,"text":"Dongtan, part of the city of Hwaseong on the fringes of Seoul, sits at the heart of South Korea’s “semiconductor belt”. Many would-be property buyers work for Samsung Electronics, where a deal agreed last month for employees to share the chipmaker’s blockbuster profits from an AI-led boom has sparked a rush to invest."}],[{"start":44.15,"text":"Many others in Dongtan work for SK Hynix, a rival chipmaker that handed employees a similar profit-sharing deal last year."}],[{"start":51.75,"text":"As a result, apartments at the Lotte Castle complex near Dongtan Station that fetched Won1.5bn before last September now go for about Won2.1bn, Choi said, and supply is limited as owners hold off on selling in anticipation of even higher prices."}],[{"start":67.75,"text":"“Samsung is also going to give Won500mn loans at low rates to employees, so they’ll go up even more,” she said."}],[{"start":76.55,"text":"Samsung and SK Hynix together control much of the market for the advanced memory chips used in AI servers. Employees at both companies are in line for average annual bonus payouts of Won600mn, which compares with a national average salary of about Won50mn."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":94.25,"text":"Dongtan, with its 40- and 50-storey apartment complexes, franchise restaurants and gleaming shopping centres, has become one of the country’s fastest-rising pockets of affluence."}],[{"start":105.65,"text":"“Maybe over half of the buyers around the Dongtan Station area pay in cash,” said Yoo Chang-wan, another local estate agent. “Semiconductor people, businesspeople, lawyers and the like, and others who just think: ‘It’s going up, buy it now!’”"}],[{"start":120.95,"text":"At the Lotte Department Store in Dongtan, staff told the FT that revenues between January and May this year were 25 per cent higher than in the same period last year, with luxury goods sales up 40 per cent."}],[{"start":135.55,"text":"In nearby Icheon, where SK Hynix is based, registrations of imported cars — typically much more expensive than domestic brands such as Hyundai or Kia — more than doubled between February 2025 and February 2026, according to the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":155.65,"text":"Chip wealth is also transforming local government finances. Lee Jun-seok, who represents a district of Hwaseong in parliament, said on social media in April that the city expected to gain corporate income tax receipts of Won1tn to Won1.3tn from Samsung alone this year, an extraordinary sum for an authority whose annual budget is about Won3.5tn."}],[{"start":180.4,"text":"Still, not everyone is benefiting from the boom, judging from visits to smaller shops and cafés."}],[{"start":187.05,"text":"One florist across the road from the Lotte Castle apartments said: “The bonuses haven’t helped me yet. I don’t think many of the guys working in that field buy flowers for their wives or girlfriends anyway.” "}],[{"start":198.95000000000002,"text":"Choi, the estate agent, said most Samsung and SK Hynix staff were “somewhat frugal” in their discretionary spending. Many are in their thirties and early forties. “As they’re at the age for starting family life they’re still a little careful with money,” she said."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":214.15,"text":"Samsung’s recent deal to share profits has also sparked resentment at other parts of the conglomerate, where terms remain much less generous."}],[{"start":222.25,"text":"“One lower-level memory worker can get much more than even my department head. How can that be?” said one mid-level employee of Samsung Foundry, a division that will receive much lower bonuses than the highly profitable memory chip side."}],[{"start":235.75,"text":"“The mood in our business unit is not bright these days, with low morale,” said a Samsung manager who has worked for the company’s non-memory business for about 15 years. “Non-memory is the company’s future growth driver, but we are getting less than memory workers just because the business is not making money immediately. We feel left behind.”"}],[{"start":253.6,"text":"But for the lucky few, the AI boom has brought a level of comfort they did not believe was possible."}],[{"start":260.5,"text":"A chip engineer at SK Hynix in his late fifties, who has worked for the company for more than 30 years, plans to buy an apartment in Seoul for his daughter, who is about to get married."}],[{"start":272.2,"text":"“As a parent, I am happy . . . it is difficult for her to buy it on her own,” he said. “The industry has ups and downs every two to three years. But I am happy to get the generous economic rewards finally after my long difficult years.”"}],[{"start":287.84999999999997,"text":"Additional reporting by Song Jung-a in Seoul"}],[{"start":298.79999999999995,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1781319680_2267.mp3"}