Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee made the remarks in "A Challenge for the Future," a message he shared with employees upon taking office on Oct. 27, 2022. Samsung Electronics' third-quarter operating profit, released that same day, came in at 10.85 trillion won, down 31.4% from a year earlier. It was a harsh period in which a chip downturn and legal risks overlapped.
Four years on, Samsung has turned that crisis into opportunity. Third-quarter revenue this year reached 195 trillion won, with preliminary operating profit of 107.4 trillion won. Operating profit was roughly 10 times the figure for the same quarter when Lee took office, making Samsung the first global big-tech company to surpass 100 trillion won in quarterly operating profit. Having found opportunity in semiconductors, Lee now appears set to accelerate a "One Samsung" management push to spread those gains across other businesses.
According to business sources on Oct. 25, Lee is expected to attend to pressing management issues on Oct. 27 without a separate anniversary event. Samsung Electronics' annual operating profit fell to 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 topped 254 trillion won. A memory chip super-cycle driven by expanding artificial intelligence infrastructure investment powered the surge.
Underpinning the rebound is the recovery of technological competitiveness that Samsung had once lost. Upon taking office, Lee stressed technology-centered management, saying the company "must invest in technologies that do not exist in the world." In February, Samsung Electronics became the first in the world to begin mass-production shipments of sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4), and in May it succeeded in supplying samples of 12-layer seventh-generation HBM4E.
Cash secured from the chip boom has been channeled into new growth engines. Samsung Electronics became the largest shareholder in robot maker Rainbow Robotics and is pursuing the acquisition of FläktGroup, Europe's largest air-conditioning equipment maker, expanding its footprint into robotics and HVAC. In July it created a Robotics (RX) Business Office to accelerate humanoid development, while Samsung Biologics has grown its contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) business into another pillar of group growth. The moves are seen as reflecting Lee's intent to reinvest semiconductor earnings in future businesses and strengthen cooperation among affiliates.
Cooperation with global big tech has also gained pace. In July, Samsung Electronics signed a memorandum of understanding with Broadcom of the U.S. to pursue AI chip cooperation worth more than $200 billion (about 265 trillion won) through 2030. The plan is to leverage its strengths as an integrated device manufacturer spanning memory, foundry and advanced packaging to strengthen its grip on the global AI market. Those expectations are reflected in corporate value: Samsung Electronics' market capitalization grew roughly fourfold from 330.129 trillion won at the end of 2022, the year Lee took office, to 1,259.873 trillion won on Oct. 23.
The task now is to translate the boom into sustainable earnings. Samsung Electronics' business plan for next year is expected to focus on converting the AI boom into stable profits. The company is seen increasing supply of high-value memory such as HBM4 while responding to demand from global big tech for custom chips. The key will be lifting profitability at relatively weak businesses, including foundry, System LSI, smartphones and home appliances.
The performance gap across businesses is tied to that challenge. Unlike semiconductors, the Device eXperience (DX) division, which oversees smartphones and home appliances, posted an operating loss of 800 billion won in the second quarter. Labor-management friction over performance bonuses is another issue to resolve. "This is an important time to spread the semiconductor business's gains into competitiveness across the whole group and to build internal trust," a business official said.
That is why November's regular executive reshuffle is seen as a gauge of the "One Samsung" vision. After reorganizing the Business Support Task Force into a formal Business Support Office last year, attention this year turns to generational change and stronger collaboration among affiliates. Samsung is also said to be weighing expanding regular board reporting on CEO candidate pools to major affiliates such as Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Samsung SDI — a step toward systematically grooming next-generation leaders and improving management continuity.