The co-CEO of Samsung Electronics, Han Jong-Hee has passed away at the hospital on Tuesday at the age of 63 after suffering a cardiac arrest, according to a spokesperson. Han was named the company’s vice chairman and CEO in 2022. Han’s co-CEO, Jun Young-Hyun, was appointed to the position last week. The spokesperson told CNN that Jun will be the company’s sole CEO after Han’s death.

Han joined the company nearly 40 years ago, in 1988. He was in charge of Samsung’s consumer electronics and mobile devices division. Han was also one of the company’s board members.

Samsung Electronics shares remained unchanged in morning trading.

The company has struggled with weak earnings and declining stock prices after losing ground in advanced memory chips and contract chip manufacturing, which are in high demand for AI projects. It has also lost its top spot in the smartphone market to Apple.

At a shareholder meeting chaired by Han last week, he and other executives faced tough questioning by shareholders about the company’s failure to capitalise on the AI boom, making it one of last year’s worst-performing tech stocks. Han was set to attend Samsung’s home appliance launch event on Wednesday.

“First and foremost, I sincerely apologise 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.

In semiconductors, Samsung lags behind SK Hynix in HBM chips, which Nvidia and others rely on for AI graphic processing units.

(Source: CNN; The Star

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