Seoul (AFP) – Samsung Electronics co-CEO Han Jong-hee, credited with boosting the South Korean tech giant’s television business on the global stage, died of a heart attack Tuesday aged 63, the company told AFP. “He died from cardiac arrest today,” a Samsung spokesperson said, adding that Han was survived by his wife and three children.
Han joined Samsung in 1988 and was seen as having played a key role in getting its high-end TV sets noticed worldwide. “Han was central in the unveiling of Samsung’s world-class LED TVs,” the firm said in a company biography published earlier this month. “His numerous other innovations enabled the company to continually demonstrate its technology leadership,” it added. Han was credited by the company with taking Samsung televisions “to the pinnacle of the global market” — and keeping them there.
Samsung Electronics is the flagship subsidiary of South Korean giant Samsung group, by far the largest of the family-controlled conglomerates that dominate Asia’s fourth-largest economy. Han was not part of the Samsung family, which still dominates the company, with third-generation leader Lee Jae-yong the current chief of Samsung Electronics.
Han’s death could deal a blow to Samsung’s strategy to keep its number one place in the global TV market, Kim Dae-jong, a professor of business administration at Sejong University in Seoul, told AFP. “Considering he has been deeply involved in Samsung’s TV business for decades, helping it firmly secure its global standing, his absence could affect its global strategy for years to come.”
Samsung, like other TV titans LG and TCL, has been packing ever more AI into huge screens that are inching towards being digital assistants capable of chatting with users and other devices in homes.
Han’s death also comes as the world’s largest memory-chip maker faces business headwinds in its race to produce chips used in artificial intelligence. Analysts have said Samsung was struggling to meet demand for chips used in AI servers, especially from US titan Nvidia. Meanwhile, local rival SK hynix has become the US giant’s main supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips for its AI graphics processing units.
The challenging conditions prompted Samsung Electronics chairman Lee to declare that the company must adopt a “do-or-die” mindset to confront the challenges posed by AI, according to media reports last week. Samsung acknowledged in October that it was facing a “crisis”, admitting that questions had arisen about its “fundamental technological competitiveness and the future of the company”.
At the company’s general meeting of shareholders last week, the last public event Han attended, he also noted that the company would need fresh momentum to gain an edge in the competitive AI field. “We will continue to pioneer in various areas such as robotics, medtech and next-generation semiconductors to secure new growth momentum,” he told the meeting.
Samsung’s operating profit sank almost a third in the fourth quarter last year, owing to spending on research. Samsung’s struggles come as the tech world has been shaken by news of DeepSeek new R1 chatbot, which sparked a rout in tech titans earlier this year and raised questions about the hundreds of billions of dollars invested in AI in recent years.
© 2024 AFP
