Shareholders of Samsung Electronics enter the corporate’s annual basic assembly of shareholders at Suwon Conference Middle in Gyeonggi Province, March 20, 2024. Joint Press Corps
Samsung Electronics is ready to carry its annual basic assembly for its 5.2 million shareholders on March 19, when it plans to approve the appointment of chip specialists to its board.
Given the precedents of earlier shareholder conferences, it’s seemingly that the corporate’s prime govt will current its development plans to shareholders throughout this 12 months’s assembly.
In a latest letter to shareholders, the corporate already outlined robots, medical expertise and next-generation semiconductors as its three development pillars. Market consideration is concentrated on how the corporate will current its future imaginative and prescient for the chip phase, which has lengthy been the spine of the corporate’s profitability. Nevertheless, it seems to have fallen behind its friends.
Its annual basic assembly is ready to start at 9 a.m. on March 19 at Suwon Conference Middle in Gyeonggi Province. In the course of the assembly, shareholders will vote on agendas together with the appointment of latest board members.
In a board assembly final month, Samsung confirmed its intention to amplify chip specialists’ voices in its total administration, nominating Jun Younger-hyun, vice chair of the reminiscence division, as one in all its new board members. The board additionally nominated Music Jai-hyuk, chief expertise officer of the reminiscence division, as a brand new member, whereas granting a brand new three-year time period to current board member Lee Jung-bae, president of the reminiscence division.
Since final 12 months, Samsung has been holding “talks with shareholders” after voting on agendas at its shareholder assembly, with chiefs of the corporate’s important enterprise departments — house equipment, cell phone and chip — explaining their future plans.
With excessive possibilities of Jun being authorized as a brand new board member, trade officers say the vice chair is prone to supply a glimpse into the corporate’s technique to revive its chip competitiveness, like his predecessor, former Samsung Electronics Gadget Options President Kyung Kye-hyun, did throughout final 12 months’s shareholder assembly.
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Jun Younger-hyun speaks throughout a facility set up ceremony on the firm’s plant in Gyeonggi Province, Nov. 18, 2024. Courtesy of Samsung Electronics
In the course of the 2024 shareholder assembly, Kyung mentioned the corporate would make investments 20 trillion gained ($13.76 billion) in its analysis and improvement complicated by 2030 and would regain its competitiveness by creating the newest applied sciences for manufacturing superior DRAM merchandise, reminiscent of high-bandwidth reminiscence (HBM) chips.
Regardless of the pledge, Samsung allowed its home rival SK hynix to turn into essentially the most worthwhile chipmaker in Korea final 12 months, after being outpaced in supplying HBMs to synthetic intelligence processor makers, specifically Nvidia.
Towards this backdrop, Jun took the helm of Samsung’s chip division in Could final 12 months and has been making efforts to revive the corporate’s technological competitiveness. Nevertheless, most of his methods stay below wraps, with the chip division halting media outreach for months.
“Given the scenario surrounding Samsung’s chip division, it’s laborious to count on that Jun will make breakthrough bulletins throughout this 12 months’s shareholder assembly,” an trade official mentioned. “On the similar time, calls are additionally rising for Jun, who returned to Samsung as a reduction pitcher, to ship clear messages or reveal his methods to ease shareholder issues concerning the firm’s future within the chip enterprise.”
One doable subject that Jun might carry up on the shareholder assembly is DRAM merchandise utilizing the compute specific hyperlink (CXL) expertise. After his appointment in Could, Samsung’s chip division has been getting ready the mass manufacturing of CXL-based DRAM, and reportedly completed validation exams on the Nationwide Radio Analysis Company just lately.
CXL is an open normal that permits quick, direct communication between processors and reminiscence units, permitting environment friendly useful resource sharing between every chip.
