Han Jong-hee, Samsung Boss Dies After Having A Heart Attack

JAKARTA - Sad news came from the Samsung Electronics electronics company where on Tuesday, March 25, Han Jong-hee co-CEO was declared dead of a heart attack.

Reporting from Reuters, Han Jong-hee's departure made Jun Young-hyun take his place and take full responsibility for this giant technology company in an effort to fix the bad-performing chip business and face trade uncertainty.

Han Jong-hee himself has been the chief executive of South Korea's largest company since 2022 and is also responsible for the electronics division of consumers and mobile devices.

Jun was recently appointed Samsung's co-CEO just last week at an annual shareholder meeting following his promotion in 2024.

Samsung said in a filing on the stock exchange that Jun would be the company's sole CEO after Han's death.

An analyst who is reluctant to be named, predicts Han Jong-hee's death will have a significant impact on Samsung's business.

"Han is the key figure behind making Samsung's TV business influential on a global scale," the analyst said.

"With his sudden death, there may be a long-term impact on his business strategy, especially in areas such as marketing," he continued.

A few weeks before his death, Han Jong-hee was questioned by shareholders because after the company failed to take advantage of the AI explosion so that its shares were listed as one of the worst-performing technology stocks last year.

In semiconductors, Samsung is indeed lagging behind SK Hynix in Nvidia's reliable HBM chips and others for AI graphic processing units.

"First and foremost, I sincerely apologize for the recent performance of stocks that did not meet your expectations. Over the past year, our company has failed to respond to the rapidly growing AI semiconductor market," said Han.