Jun will officially be named President and CEO of Samsung upon approval from the board of directors and shareholders. Samsung has a dual-CEO system, with one CEO over the semiconductor business and the other over device experience (phones, displays, etc.). Jun’s primary objective according to Samsung is to “strengthen its competitiveness amid an uncertain global business environment.”
Jun takes this role over from President Kyehyun Kyung, who now replaces Jun in his previous role over the Future Business Division, a division established in 2023 to study new visions for Samsung’s growth in the future. Kyung is “expected to focus on finding new growth opportunities based on his experience leading the semiconductor business,” per Samsung’s press release.
President Jun has also been the head of Samsung’s memory business and battery business from 2014-2017 and 2017-2023, respectively. This long experience across Samsung’s different operations, especially in memory, is likely of critical importance to Samsung executives worried about losing ground to SK hynix, their greatest competition in the memory space.
With TrendForce’s March survey finding that SK hynix is within 8% of Samsung’s enterprise SSD market share and other sources showing SK hynix is dominating the HBM supply market, Samsung is at risk of falling out of their number one spot in the memory market. However, Samsung could soon have a major leg up on SK hynix in DRAM with its advancements in VCT DRAM coming in 2025, but that may not be soon enough for Samsung’s investors.
Thankfully the future is still exciting for Samsung. The U.S. government has announced that $6.4 billion in CHIPS Act funding is coming Samsung’s way to build semiconductor fabs in Texas, a major victory that Jun now inherits early in his position as CEO. In the laptop market, Samsung also stands in an exciting spot with its new Galaxy Book4 Edge due to arrive as part of Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC first wave, and on paper, it has the best display of the pack.
