Samsung announces new leadership to stay relevant in chip biz

Seoul, Nov 27 (IANS) Samsung Electronics announced its new leadership on Wednesday with a focus on the semiconductor business, in an apparent move to strengthen its future competitiveness in the field.

Jun Young-hyun, vice chairman and head of the device solutions (DS) division, was named CEO and will also lead the memory business and Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, the Korean company said in a statement.

In a bid to bolster its technological competitiveness, the new CEO will directly manage the memory business unit.

Since taking office as the DS division head in May, Jun has created a new high bandwidth memory (HBM) development team in just over a month and has vowed to regain leadership in the global chip market, reports Yonhap news agency.

Han Jin-man, former executive vice president and president of Device Solutions America, was promoted to president and will head the foundry business, which is suffering a loss of trillions of won.

Han is expected to work to enhance the competitiveness of the foundry business through his network of global clients and his technological expertise.

Samsung Electronics also newly created the chief technology officer position for its foundry business and appointed Nam Seok-woo, former president and head of FAB Engineering & Operations.

Kim Yong-kwan, former executive vice president of a business support taskforce, has also been promoted to president of management strategy at the device solutions division.

The latest reshuffle affected a total of nine officials, including seven who have been reassigned to new positions.

Samsung said the reshuffle is aimed at giving new challenges, such as the innovation of brands and consumer experience, to veteran executives with "global leadership" and "excellent management capabilities" to foster mid-to-long-term growth of the company.

The Korean chipmaker has been in a crisis this year as it posted disappointing earnings, apparently lagging behind its rivals in the global artificial intelligence chip war, and also due to a negative outlook for the global semiconductor industry.

In the July-September period, Samsung posted a lower-than-expected operating profit from its chips division at 3.86 trillion won, marking a sharp decline from a 6.45 trillion won profit in the previous quarter.

In the high-value high bandwidth memory (HBM) chip market, the company is trailing after its local rival SK hynix Inc., which has already started mass-producing the industry-leading 12-layer HBM3E chips. Samsung's HBM3E products are still undergoing qualification testing by Nvidia Corp., a key customer in the AI market.

Earlier this month, shares in Samsung hit 49,900 won ($35.71), the lowest mark since June 2020, prompting the company to initiate a share buyback program. The stock price had rebounded to 58,300 won as of Tuesday.

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