LG Innotek, the LG Group affiliate that makes camera modules and semiconductor substrates, said on June 4 it will build a new chip-substrate plant in Haiphong, Vietnam's northern port city, signing a memorandum of understanding with the Haiphong city government at LG Science Park in Seoul (etnews, Maeil Business Newspaper, June 4). The move puts a second mass-production base behind a domestic operation that the company says is running near its limit.
The number that matters: ₩1.72T today, ₩3T by 2030
The expansion supplies the capacity LG Innotek needs to make its growth-target arithmetic work. Its Package Solutions division — the unit housing chip substrates — booked revenue of ₩1.72 trillion ($1.26 billion) in 2025, up 18% year on year (The Korea Herald). Management's stated goal is to grow package solutions to more than ₩3 trillion ($2.19 billion) in annual revenue by 2030 (Seoul Economic Daily, The Korea Times). Hitting that figure requires roughly 75% growth over five years, and LG Innotek's existing substrate lines in Gumi, a city in North Gyeongsang Province, are "expected to soon approach maximum capacity" (The Korea Herald). Without new floor space, the 2030 target has no physical room to land — which is what the Vietnam plant is meant to provide.
What the plant is
The Haiphong facility will span about 330,000 square meters — roughly 45 soccer fields — and be funded directly by LG Innotek's Vietnamese subsidiary (The Korea Times, Seoul Economic Daily). Construction is set to begin in July 2026, with completion targeted for May 2027 (etnews, The Korea Times). LG Innotek did not disclose the investment amount in the announcement (Seoul Economic Daily).
The plant will produce radio-frequency system-in-package (RF-SiP), flip-chip chip-scale package (FC-CSP), and flip-chip ball-grid-array (FC-BGA) substrates — the high-density boards used in AI servers and data centers (The Korea Times). Under what the company calls a dual-manufacturing strategy, Gumi becomes the "mother factory" for developing new technologies and high-value-added products, while Haiphong runs as a mass-production base for general-purpose substrates (Seoul Economic Daily). Demand drivers cited are 5G/6G adoption for RF-SiP, on-device AI for FC-CSP, and sustained AI-infrastructure spending for FC-BGA (Seoul Economic Daily).
President Moon Hyuk-soo framed the unit as "one of LG Innotek's key growth engines," citing "both profitability and growth potential" (Seoul Economic Daily, The Korea Times).
Precedent: a build-out already underway
The Vietnam deal extends a buildout that began at home. In March 2025, LG Innotek committed about ₩600 billion ($438 million) to expand substrate capacity in Gumi (The Korea Times). The company entered volume FC-BGA production only recently, after taking over an LG Electronics plant in Gumi, and has publicly targeted building FC-BGA into a roughly $700 million business by 2030 (LG Innotek, April 2025, via PR Newswire). The Haiphong site is the next, larger step in that same diversification arc — and locating it outside Korea also reduces the company's geographic and supply-chain concentration.
What to watch
The first checkpoint is well before the plant opens. LG Innotek's package-solutions revenue is projected to reach ₩1.88 trillion ($1.37 billion) in 2026, with operating profit climbing to ₩181.8 billion ($133 million) (The Korea Herald). Whether the division tracks toward that 2026 figure — reported in the company's quarterly earnings — is the near-term read on whether the ₩3 trillion 2030 path is credible. The Haiphong plant itself does not contribute output until after its targeted May 2027 completion, so the diversification thesis stays unproven on the financials until then.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Figures in U.S. dollars are converted at approximately ₩1,370 per dollar and are indicative only.
Sources
- https://www.etnews.com/20260604000117
- https://www.hankyung.com/article/2026060480781
- https://www.mk.co.kr/news/business/12066088
- https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/business/tech-science/20260604/lg-innotek-to-expand-chip-substrate-plant-in-vietnam
- https://en.sedaily.com/markets/2026/06/04/lg-innotek-to-expand-chip-substrate-capacity-in-vietnam
- https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10693624
- https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lg-innotek-to-build-fc-bga-into-700-million-usd-business-by-2030-with-its-state-of-the-art-dream-factory-302442332.html
