Samsung Electronics Co-CEO Han Jong-hee Passes Away at 63

Samsung Electronics announced on Tuesday that co-CEO Han Jong-hee had died of cardiac arrest. Han was 63.

Han oversaw Samsung's consumer electronics and mobile device divisions, while co-CEO Jun Young-hyun is in charge of the company's chip business.

Han died at a hospital on Tuesday while being treated for cardiac arrest, according to a company spokesperson, who added that a successor had yet to be determined.

In recent quarters, the South Korean company has struggled with weak earnings and sagging share prices after falling behind rivals in advanced memory chips and contract chip manufacturing, both of which have seen strong demand from artificial intelligence projects. Samsung has also ceded its smartphone market dominance to Apple.

Han started his career in television before joining Samsung Electronics nearly 40 years ago. In 2022, he was named CEO and vice chairman of Samsung Electronics. Han also served on the company's board.

He presided over Samsung's shareholder meeting last week, where he and other executives were grilled by shareholders following the company's failure to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom, which made it one of the worst-performing tech stocks last year.

In semiconductors, Samsung trails SK Hynix in HBM chips, which Nvidia and others use for AI graphic processing units."First and foremost, I sincerely apologize for the recent stock performance that did not meet your expectations. "Over the last year, our company has failed to adequately respond to the rapidly changing AI semiconductor market," Han stated.

He was supposed to attend Samsung's launch event for new home appliances on Wednesday.