Samsung announced that its board of directors voted today to approve the appointment of Lee Jae-yong as the chairman of Samsung Electronics . Since becoming vice president in 2012, after ten years, Lee Jae-yong has finally been promoted to president, and Samsung will enter the "Lee Jae-yong era".
Figure: The rightmost one is Lee Jae-yong
Lee Jae-yong did not feel easy after taking office. It coincided with the global semiconductor industry experiencing a cold winter. The financial report shows that Samsung was affected by the sluggish demand for the memory chip and electronic consumer market. The revenue in the third quarter of 2022 was lower than expected, which was also the first time its profit decline in three years. Samsung's third-quarter 2022 financial report showed that its revenue was 76.78 trillion won, and increased by 3.8% year-on-year, setting a record high; operating profit was 10.85 trillion won, a year-on-year decrease of 31.4% and a month-on-month decrease of 23%; net profit was 9.39 trillion won, a year-on-year decrease of 23.6%.
The semiconductor sector revenue was 23 trillion won, a year-on-year decrease of 14%, also lower than expected. Over the past quarter, the average price of DRAM and NAND chips has fallen by about 20%. Although Samsung has increased its investment in its semiconductor business in the past two years, Samsung, which is extremely cautious in investment, may also consider reducing production or reducing capital expenditures due to the severe macroeconomic situation.
Market environment and financial reports are only one aspect, and on the other hand, Samsung faces many internal management problems. Starting from the 7nm process node, Samsung has been unsuccessful in semiconductor process research and development. In the past two years, chips produced in both 5nm and 4nm processes have had major problems in terms of performance and yield, and similar situations have also occurred in the development department of Exynos chips.
