Despite uncertainties in the global business environment triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, Samsung Electronics on Monday announced it made the largest-ever investment in research and development in the first quarter.

The South Korean tech giant spent a total of 5.36 trillion won ($4.37 billion) on R&D activities in the January-March period, surpassing its previous record of 5.32 trillion won in the fourth quarter of 2018, its financial data reported to the Financial Supervisory Service showed.

The R&D spending accounted for 9.7 percent of the company’s sales in the first quarter, growing slightly from the same period last year.

Last year, the company’s total R&D investment stood at 20.19 trillion won, exceeding the 20 trillion won mark for the first time.

Samsung recently warned about the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in its performance in the second quarter. However, he company will likely to maintain the R&D investment amount each quarter with a plan to spend more than 20 trillion won throughout the year.

The tech giant pans to spend 133 trillion won on establishing R&D and manufacturing infrastructure for the system-on-chip business by 2030, and 13 trillion won on its new quantum-dot display business by 2025.