What that means locally is that about 2,500 temporary equipment vendors and construction workers will be hired for the project. A prominent local leasing agent told Parts-People.com by phone that the influx will put a strain on apartment and housing availability because even though published numbers show occupancy rates of 98% to 99%, he believes the real occupancy rate is higher than 99%.

The renovation project is not expected to add many permanent full-time employees to Samsung's current full-time workforce of about 2,500 in the Austin area. That South Korean company plans on putting the newly renovated facilities into mass production of SoC (System-on-Chip) chipsets by the middle of 2013 following installation, extensive testing, and evaluation.

Reasons for the Investment

Samsung Electronics is the largest maker of memory chips in the world, but is not achieving the profit margins on memory chips that can be made on SoC chipsets which are the brains of smartphones, tablets, many laptops, and other devices. Samsung also manufactures HDDs.

In the second quarter of 2012 Samsung was the largest mobile handset producer in the world, shipping 50-million units, or about 26% of all mobile phones shipped world-wide. Nokia took second place with 23%, and Apple Inc. was a distant third, shipping 7.2 percent of the world's total, according to ABI research.

Market research firm IHS iSuppli reports that in the handset category called smartphones, Apple shipped about 61-million smartphones in the first half of 2012, while Samsung shipped approximately 70-million.

Interdependent Corporate Bedfellows

Looking only at the subset of mobile handsets known as smartphones it turns out that Samsung and Apple combined account for more than 50% of the world-wide smartphone market. Samsung is the only manufacturer of Apple-designed chips that are the brains of the iPad and iPhone, even though Samsung competes directly with Apple.

Research firm Gartner Inc. estimates that the chips Apple buys from Samsung for its tablets and phones will be valued at as much as $7.5-billion in 2012, an increase of 60% over 2011. A Bloomberg supply-chain analysis indicates that Apple's purchases from Samsung account for 8.9% of Samsung's revenue, which means Apple Inc. is Samsung's largest customer.

The Litigation Dance

In spite of their mutual interdependence Apple and Samsung are slugging it out with patent lawsuits spanning four continents.

In a recent court action, information came to light on a new tablet Samsung is planning. That tablet is believed by many industry observers to constitute a very high powered and high quality potential game-changer, with the real possibility that it could blow the market away with best-in-class performance. It was covered in a report titled: "Samsung’s P10 Tablet with Exynos 5 Dual May Kick Apple’s Core".

Taxpayer Gifts to Samsung

The Manor Independent School District board has accepted an application from Samsung which would limit the appraised value of Samsung's Austin investment. If that appraised value limitation is approved it would put a cap on the taxable value of Samsung's property.

Samsung has no need to ask for extensions to tax incentive agreements with Travis County and the City of Austin because those agreements already extend for 20 years.