South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics announced on Tuesday that its co-CEO, Han Jong-hee, had died of cardiac arrest at the age of 63. Han was responsible for the company’s consumer electronics and mobile devices division, while co-CEO Jun Young-hyun oversees the chip business. The company stated that a successor has yet to be determined.

Samsung has experienced weak earnings and declining stock prices recently due to falling behind competitors in the production of advanced memory chips and contract chip manufacturing, which have seen increased demand from artificial intelligence projects. Additionally, Samsung has lost its lead in the smartphone market to Apple.

Han, who spent almost four decades at Samsung Electronics, became vice-chair and CEO in 2022. He chaired the company’s shareholder meeting last week, where he and other executives faced criticism over Samsung’s failure to capitalize on the AI boom, resulting in underwhelming stock performance.

In the semiconductor industry, Samsung trails behind SK Hynix in the production of HBM chips used by Nvidia and others for AI graphic processing units. Han acknowledged the company’s shortcomings in an apology to shareholders, acknowledging that Samsung had not adequately responded to the rapidly evolving AI semiconductor market. He was scheduled to attend Samsung’s launch event for new home appliances on Wednesday.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/25/han-jong-hee-samsung-ceo-dead