Samsung co-CEO Han Jong-hee died this week in the Samsung Medical Center in southern Seoul after a cardiac arrest. He was 63.
Han joined the South Korean mega-corporation in 1988 after graduating with a degree in electronics engineering. He spent much of his early career in visual displays, before being picked to help the chaebol expand its consumer electronics in a bid to eclipse Japanese rival Sony and change the perception of Samsung as a low-end manufacturer.
“Chairman Lee Jae-yong expressed his deep regret over being unable to attend the memorial ceremony in person due to his schedule in China,” the enormo-biz said in a statement Monday. “He extends his heartfelt condolences and sympathy to the bereaved family.”
Samsung said Han played a “pivotal role” [PDF] in driving its television business, and the Korean corp became the largest manufacturer of tellies globally in 2006, a position it retains today. He became Samsung’s president and head of the visual display business in 2017, and by 2022 he was named co-CEO.
On the mobile side of the business, Sammy has been grappling with Apple for the top spot in terms of worldwide smartphone market share, with the pair even just lately alternating between first and second place.
Over on the chips side, while raking in tens of billions of dollars a year in sales, Samsung’s semiconductor arm arguably missed the AI hype boat, faces tough competition from Taiwan’s TSMC in the fabrication space, and ceded ground to rival SK hynix in the high bandwidth memory market.
In a conference call last week with financial analysts, Han apologized to investors as Samsung stock has dropped more than 25 percent in the past year, and the biz characterized its current situation as a “do or die” crisis.
“First and foremost, I sincerely apologize for the recent stock performance not meeting your expectations,” he said. “Over the past year, our company failed to adequately respond to the rapidly evolving AI semiconductor market.”
That said, in terms of 2024 semiconductor vendor revenues, Samsung ranked number one globally over Intel, Nvidia, SK hynix, Qualcomm, Micron, Broadcom, AMD, and Apple, from second to ninth, according to Gartner last month.
Han’s fellow co-CEO, Kyung Kye-hyun, is now in charge of the business, and there’s no word as yet if a successor to Han will be named. Han is survived by his wife and three children. ®
