Samsung to merge mobile, consumer electronics units

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. has announced its plans to merge its mobile and consumer electronics divisions. The South Korean-based electronics giant has also named new co-chief executives in the biggest reshuffle since 2017 to simplify its structure and focus on the logic chip business.

Having two co-chief executives, instead of three, will permit Samsung to pivot on the two business pillars of chips and consumer devices, including smartphones, and to help lead the next phase of growth and boost competitiveness.

Samsung, whose Galaxy flagship brand helped it become the world’s biggest smartphone maker by volume, is seeking to revive slowing mobile growth, whose profit contribution shrank to 21% last quarter from nearly 70% at its peak in early 2010s. Instead, its component business, led by chips, has become the most profitable, helped by a boom in data storage and a recent shortage of global semiconductor supplies.

Samsung said Han Jong-hee, the head of visual display business, will become a co-CEO, leading the newly merged division spanning mobile and consumer electronics as well as continuing to lead the television business. Kyung Kye-hyun, chief executive of component affiliate Samsung Electro-Mechanics and a former head of the flash memory chip and technology team, was named co-CEO to lead the chip and components division.