Samsung Electronics on Wednesday carried out a sweeping reorganization on Wednesday, splitting the tech giant into three individual business divisions: consumer electronics, IT and mobile, and device solutions.
The world’s top smartphone maker had run the company under two different divisions: finished goods and device solutions.
The finished products division included consumer electronics and home appliance units run by its head and president Yoon Boo-keun, and handset and IT device unit headed by president Shin Jong-kyun.
“The reason behind the restructuring into three major divisions is because the firm came to a conclusion that it will be more effective to give more power to presidents Yoon and Shin by raising the status of the two units of finished goods,” said a Samsung official.
This indicates that the consumer electronics division will include visual display, home appliance, printing solution and medical device units, and the IT and mobile division will encompass wireless business, network project and digital imaging units as well as the Media Solution Center.
The device solutions division, which will continue to be spearheaded next year by vice chairman Kwon Oh-hyun, will include the memory business, System LSI, LED, Semiconductor Research Center and Software Research Center.
Earlier this year, the flagship electronics arm of the country’s top conglomerate named two executives ― vice chairmen Choi Gee-sung and Kwon Oh-hyun ― to run the organization, creating a dual management system.
However, there was a change of plans when Choi was told to take charge of the Samsung Group’s control tower, dubbed the corporate strategy office, in June.
As a result, the position was left vacant until Wednesday’s announcement, while Samsung continued to post record profit and sales in the third quarter of this year.
When looking into the details of the restructuring, the PC unit was merged with the wireless business unit, given the name IT solution business unit, according to Samsung officials.
The printer business was newly named the printing solution business unit under the consumer electronics division. The medical device project, geared to become a new growth engine, was turned into an individual unit to conduct additional and improved businesses, its officials said.
For the device solution division, a research center for the development of software was established to invent a next-generation software platform and embedded software research as well as nurturing field experts, said Samsung officials.
By Cho Ji-hyun (
sharon@heraldcorp.com)
