(Yicai Global) Dec. 12 -- China sales of South Korea's Samsung Electronics' have fizzled in recent years. The company will shut down its North China smartphone factory, Tianjin Samsung Communication Technology, on Dec. 31, some media have reported.

The Tianjin unit has already ordered a production stop from Jan. 1, but without issuing written notice, and has not addressed workers' compensation issues, its staffers told China News Service today.

Seoul-based Samsung sold only 600,000 units in China in the third quarter, per industry data. Its share of China's handset market fell below 0.8 percent in the second quarter. Samsung Electronics has been considering suspending operation of the Tianjin plant, which opened in 2001, prompted by a steep decline in sales and rising labor costs, Korea-based Electronics Times reported in August. Samsung later refuted this report.

"The vice president called a meeting about it. The company as of now hasn't released any compensation plans for staff, and we're still working as usual," employees told China News Service. Samsung has yet to comment on the matter. 

This is not the first time Samsung has closed a plant in China. It shut its Shenzhen unit in late April and dismissed 320 employees, media reported.

The company is planning to spend USD2.4 billion to toggle some of the existing product structures in the Tianjin plant, while actively launching new projects, such as power battery production lines and automotive multilayer ceramic capacitor plants, Tianjin Daily reported on Dec. 10. 

Samsung will complete the projects by the end of next year and put it into production in 2020, per the report. These new initiatives will lift its output to over CNY20 billion (USD2.9 billion), it added.

Editor: Ben Armour