South Korean tech big Samsung Electronics mentioned on Tuesday that its co-chief government officer Han Jong-hee has died as a result of cardiac arrest. Han was 63.
Han was in cost of Samsung’s shopper electronics and cellular units division, whereas co-CEO Jun Young-hyun oversees the chip enterprise of South Korea’s greatest firm.
Han handed away at a hospital on Tuesday whereas being handled for cardiac arrest, an organization spokesperson mentioned, including {that a} successor had not but been determined.
The South Korean agency has been affected by weak earnings and sagging share costs in latest quarters after falling behind rivals in superior reminiscence chips and contract chip manufacturing, which have loved sturdy demand from synthetic intelligence tasks. Samsung has additionally ceded its smartphone market crown to Apple.
Han, who joined Samsung Electronics almost 40 years in the past, constructed his profession within the TV enterprise. He turned vice-chair and CEO of Samsung Electronics in 2022. Han was additionally one of the corporate’s board members.
He chaired Samsung’s shareholder assembly final week, the place he and different executives have been grilled by shareholders after the corporate’s failure to trip an AI growth made it one of the worst-performing tech shares final 12 months.
In semiconductors, Samsung lags behind SK Hynix in HBM chips that Nvidia and others depend on for AI graphic processing models.
“First and foremost, I sincerely apologise for the latest inventory efficiency not assembly your expectations. Over the previous 12 months, our firm didn’t adequately reply to the quickly evolving AI semiconductor market,” Han mentioned.
He was scheduled to attend Samsung’s launch occasion for brand new dwelling home equipment on Wednesday.
