Samsung Electronics said on Tuesday that co-CEO Han Jong-hee had died of a heart attack, leaving newly-appointed boss Jun Young-hyun solely in charge of the tech giant as it revamps its underperforming chip business and navigates trade uncertainties.
Han, 63, became chief executive officer of South Korea's biggest company in 2022 and was also in charge of its consumer electronics and mobile devices division.
Jun was appointed as Samsung's co-CEO just last week at its annual shareholders meeting following his promotion in 2024 to lead its semiconductor division, which has been lagging rivals like SK Hynix and TSMC in the global artificial intelligence chip market.
Samsung said in a stock exchange filing that Jun would be the sole CEO of the company after Han's death.
Samsung shares were down 0.5% in line with the broader South Korean market.
The world's biggest memory chipmaker has been suffering from weak earnings and a sagging share price in recent quarters after falling behind rivals in advanced memory chips and contract chip manufacturing, which have enjoyed strong demand from AI projects. Samsung has also ceded its smartphone market crown to Apple.
Han, who was also a board member, passed away at a hospital on Tuesday while being treated for cardiac arrest, a company spokesperson said. Samsung has not yet decided on a successor, the spokesperson added.
The company has traditionally had a co-CEO structure that divides oversight of its consumer and chips divisions.
Han joined Samsung nearly 40 years ago and built his career in its television business.
"Han was the key figure behind making Samsung’s TV business influential on a global scale," said an analyst who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the subject. "With his sudden passing... there could have some long-term impact on its business strategy, particularly in areas like marketing."
Han's absence could also potentially affect Samsung's efforts to improve the performance of its home appliance division at a time when it has to deal with uncertainties involving tariffs and escalating trade wars, the analyst said.
DIFFICULT YEAR
At the shareholder meeting Han chaired last week, he told investors that 2025 would be a difficult year and Samsung would flexibly respond to US President Donald Trump's tariffs with its global supply chain and manufacturing footprints.
He and other executives were grilled by shareholders at the meeting after the company's failure to ride an AI boom made it one of the worst-performing tech stocks last year.
In semiconductors, Samsung lags behind SK Hynix in so-called high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips that Nvidia and others rely on for AI graphic processing units.
"First and foremost, I sincerely apologize for the recent stock performance not meeting your expectations. Over the past year, our company failed to adequately respond to the rapidly evolving AI semiconductor market," Han said.
He was scheduled to attend Samsung's launch event for new home appliances on Wednesday.
Sources have said Samsung is also seeking to expand its presence in the automotive electronics market to drive new growth.
Samsung chairman Jay Y. Lee, who is in China this week to attend the China Development Forum, visited Xiaomi's car factory in Beijing and BYD's headquarters in Shenzhen, according to photos posted on Chinese social media app and local media reports.
Samsung declined to comment on Lee's trip to China.
Lee has been dogged by lawsuits and scandals for the past decade, after his father Lee Kun-hee had a heart attack in 2014. In February, he was cleared of charges in a case related to his succession of the family-owned conglomerate, but prosecutors appealed to the court decision.
