Aug. 20 (NBD) -- Facing plummeting sales and rising labor costs, South Korea's electronics firm Samsung Electrics Co is considering stopping operation of its Tianjin manufacturing unit. 

This came after the company's decision to close its Shenzhen plant in April and lay off about 320 employees. 

Samsung said it would not quit Chinese consumer electronics market and its semiconductor memory chip business is still expanding in China.

The electronics giant's new move is believed to be one of the ways out of its dilemma in the smartphone market.

As the company is facing challenges from several Chinese smartphone brands, it saw declining smartphone sales quarter by quarter. 

According to Samsung's latest financial results, the IT and mobile communications division of the firm posted a consolidated revenue of 24 trillion won (21.5 billion U.S. dollars) in the second quarter of 2018, representing 16 percent decline as compared to 28.45 trillion won (25.5 billion U.S. dollars) for the first quarter of this year. The operating profit of the second quarter fell 34 percent to 2.67 trillion won (2.39 billion U.S. dollars) from 3.77 trillion won (3.37 billion U.S. dollars) for the previous quarter of 2018.

Statics from market research firm IDC revealed that though Samsung maintained leadership in the global smartphone market, the shipment of the giant reported a year-on-year decrease of 10.4 percent in the second quarter. 

It is noted that Shenzhen-based smartphone firm Huawei surpassed Apple to gain the second place in the global market in the quarter. Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Technologies Consumer Business Group, said Huawei's goal is to top the global smartphone market by the fourth quarter of 2019. 

Chinese brands' aggressive foray into the mid- and high-end smartphone market posed great pressure to Samsung in the domestic market.

In the first half of 2018, Oppo took the first spot in China's market with the shipment of 38.08 million units and Samsung shipped 3.75 million phones, ranking 9th in the Chinese market. 

With rising labor cost for production in China, Samsung set up new manufacturing bases in emerging markets such as Vietnam and India. 

Samsung started setting up its Vietnam subsidiary in 2015 and its two plants in the country are able to produce a total of around 240 million units annually.

Moreover, the South Korean firm built a large plant in India's New Delhi in July. 

Apart from domestic market, Chinese firms are also challenging Samsung in other markets around the world.

Samsung was surpassed by Xiaomi in Indian market in the fourth quarter of 2017, though it regained its top spot 6 months later.

Besides, Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi also eye further inroads into Europe where Samsung grabbed 40 percent of the market share.

Email: zhanglingxiao@nbd.com.cn