SEOUL (AFP) – Samsung Electronics co-CEO Han Jong-hee, credited with boosting the South Korean tech giant’s television business on the global stage, died of a heart attack Tuesday aged 63, the company told AFP.
“He died from cardiac arrest today,” a Samsung spokesperson said, adding that Han was survived by his wife and three children.
Han joined Samsung in 1988 and was seen as having played a key role in getting its high-end TV sets noticed worldwide.
“Han was central in the unveiling of Samsung’s world-class LED TVs,” the firm said in a company biography published earlier this month.
“His numerous other innovations enabled the company to continually demonstrate its technology leadership,” it added.
Han was credited by the company with taking Samsung televisions “to the pinnacle of the global market” — and keeping them there.
Samsung Electronics is the flagship subsidiary of South Korean giant Samsung group, by far the largest of the family-controlled conglomerates that dominate Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
Han was not part of the Samsung family, which still dominates the company, with third-generation leader Lee Jae-yong the current chief of Samsung Electronics.
Han’s death comes as the world’s largest memory-chip maker faces business headwinds in its race to produce chips used in artificial intelligence.
The company has been seen as struggling to meet Nvidia’s requirements, while rival SK hynix has become the US giant’s main supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips for its AI graphics processing units.
The challenging conditions prompted chairman Lee Jae-yong to declare that the company must adopt a “do-or-die” mindset to confront the challenges posed by AI, according to media reports last week.
Samsung acknowledged in October that it was facing a “crisis”, admitting that questions had arisen about its “fundamental technological competitiveness and the future of the company”.
