Amid claims Samsung Electronics is facing an “unprecedented crisis,” CEO Kwon Oh-Hyun has announced he is stepping down from his role.
In a letter to employees, Kwon noted that as the firm is “confronted with unprecedented crisis inside out, I believe that time has now come for the company start anew, with a new spirit and young leadership to better respond to challenges arising from the rapidly changing IT industry.”
He’s likely referring to the arrest of Lee Jae-Yong, the de facto head of Samsung Group; the 49-year old leader was imprisoned in August after he was found guilty of bribery and embezzlement.
The news follows Samsung Electronics’ prediction of record profits for its third quarter: it estimates that it’ll rake in $12.8 billion USD, which works out to a 179 percent increase from the same period a year ago, reads a report from Bloomberg.
A few hours before Kwon dropped the bombshell, Samsung Electronics said it expected profits for the last quarter to be at an all-time high, mostly thanks to the increase in memory chip prices. Sales of the Galaxy Note 8, which received more pre-orders than any other phone in the Note line, also helped boost the numbers.
Samsung has been seeking to move past a bribery scandal that saw the company’s de-facto head Lee Jae-Yong thrown into jail, and to overcome a damaging recall last year of its flagship Galaxy Note 7 smartphone over exploding batteries.
Lee, who was found guilty in August of bribery, perjury and other charges relating to payments made by Samsung to ousted president Park Geun-Hye’s secret confidante Choi Soon-Sil, is appealing his five-year sentence and says he is innocent.
The future of Samsung Group’s biggest earner hangs in the balance. The company will have to work quickly to find successor; Kwon will only serve as a member of the board, as well as the CEO of Samsung Display, until March 2018.
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It’s amazing they can lead the industry while dealing with so much drama.
I wonder if people thought the same of Enron ????
lol.You know what I mean though? There would be no mobile industry without Samsung. They make the parts and technology everybody else uses.
Oh for sure and I’m guessing if things go south they would have a lineup of companies whiling to purchase divisions. But I don’t see it going that route.
that’s quite narrow vision you have. Samsung is not irreplaceable. Yes they many mobile components but someone can take over. personally. I despise Samsung almost as much as I despise Trump.
Or Trump
whats the issue, apple is still there. They can continue copying them without a CEO. lol
Apple is the one copying Samsung at the moment with the expanding batteries lol
Hey, hey, hey there’s a difference between expanding and exploding Hahaha!
It wasn’t that long ago that Apple won a 120 million patent case against Samsung. The world is full of copying, enhancing, etc. I get so tired of folk trying to use that to show how terrible one company is when compared to a company guilty of the same crime. It’s everywhere… that’s part of globalization.
I’m curious what will change under slightly younger leadership.
Samsung never understand the importance of people, ethics, customer service and the synergy between hardware and software. I know there are many more examples, I just mentioned a few that are important to me.
you get that i meant samsung can continue copying apple?