韩媒回顾李在镕就任三星电子会长四周年：业绩增十倍系旧闻综述，无新增可交易催化

"The reality before us is grave, and the market is unforgiving. Looking back, there has never been a time without crisis. Depending on how we respond, it can become an opportunity."
Jay Y. Lee, chairman of Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), made the remarks in a message titled "A Challenge for the Future" that he shared with employees upon taking office on Oct. 27, 2022. Samsung Electronics' third-quarter operating profit, announced the same day, came to 10.852 trillion won, down 31.4% from a year earlier. The company was facing a harsh stretch marked by both a chip downturn and legal risk.
Four years on, Samsung has turned that crisis into an opportunity. Third-quarter revenue reached 195 trillion won and operating profit came to 107.4 trillion won on a preliminary basis. Operating profit was roughly 10 times the figure for the same quarter when Lee took office, and marked the first time a global tech giant has topped 100 trillion won in quarterly operating profit. Having found opportunity in semiconductors, Lee is now expected to accelerate a "One Samsung" management push that spreads those gains to other businesses.
Lee will attend to pressing management issues on the 27th without holding a separate anniversary event, according to business sources on the 25th. Samsung Electronics' annual operating profit fell as low as 6.567 trillion won in 2023 amid the chip downturn, but recovered to 43.6011 trillion won last year, and cumulative operating profit for the first three quarters of this year has surpassed 254 trillion won. A memory chip boom driven by expanding artificial intelligence infrastructure investment powered the surge in earnings.
Underlying the rebound is the recovery of technological competitiveness that Samsung had once lost. On taking office, Lee emphasized technology-centered management, saying the company must invest in technologies that do not yet exist. In February, Samsung Electronics became the first in the world to ship mass-produced sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory, or HBM4, and in May it succeeded in supplying samples of 12-layer seventh-generation HBM4E products.
Funds secured during the chip boom were directed toward new growth engines. Samsung Electronics became the largest shareholder in robotics firm Rainbow Robotics and pursued the acquisition of FläktGroup, Europe's largest air-conditioning equipment maker, expanding its business territory into robotics and climate systems. In July, it set up a robotics business division to speed up humanoid development, while Samsung Biologics (207940.KS) has grown its contract development and manufacturing organization business to become another pillar of group growth. The moves are seen as reflecting Lee's intent to reinvest semiconductor gains in future businesses and strengthen cooperation among affiliates.
Partnerships with global tech giants also gathered pace. In July, Samsung Electronics signed a memorandum of understanding with U.S.-based Broadcom to pursue AI chip cooperation worth more than $200 billion, or about 265 trillion won, through 2030. The plan is to strengthen its grip on the global AI market by drawing on its strengths as an integrated chipmaker spanning memory, foundry contract manufacturing and advanced packaging. Those expectations have been reflected in its corporate value: Samsung Electronics' market capitalization, which stood at 330.129 trillion won at the end of 2022, the year Lee took office, had grown roughly fourfold to 1,259.873 trillion won as of the 23rd of this month.
The task now is to turn the boom into sustainable profit. Samsung Electronics' business plan for next year is expected to focus on converting the AI boom into stable earnings. The company is projected to increase supplies of high-value memory such as HBM4 while responding to demand from global tech giants for customized chips. Lifting profitability at relatively weak businesses — foundry, System LSI, smartphones and home appliances — is the key challenge.
The gap in performance across businesses is tied to that task. Unlike semiconductors, the device experience division, which handles smartphones and home appliances, posted an operating loss of 800 billion won in the second quarter of this year. Labor-management friction over performance bonuses is another issue to resolve. A business community official said it is an important time to spread the gains from semiconductors into competitiveness across the group and to build trust within the organization.
For that reason, observers say the regular executive reshuffle in November will serve as a gauge of the "One Samsung" vision. After the business support task force was reorganized into a formal business support office last year, attention this year turns to whether the company will push a generational shift and deepen cooperation among affiliates. A plan to expand regular board reporting on chief executive candidate pools to major affiliates including Samsung Electro-Mechanics (009150.KS) and Samsung SDI (006400.KS) is also said to be under way. The aim is to systematically cultivate the next generation of management and improve continuity in leadership.