Samsung co-CEO Han Jong-hee passes away

Samsung Electronics co-CEO Han Jong-hee died on Tuesday of a heart attack, the company said.

Han had been with Samsung since 1988 and built a career in the television department. The company said he was central in taking Samsung TV to "the pinnacle of the global market."

He became the CEO in 2022 and was also in charge of its consumer electronics and mobile devices division.

The Samsung company is still dominated by the Samsung family, with Lee Jae-yong as the third-generation leader and current chief of its flagship subsidiary Samsung Electronics.

The South Korean tech giant said in a stock exchange filing that Jun Young-hyun would now be the sole CEO. The company has traditionally had a co-CEO structure. Jun had only been appointed as co-CEO last week.

The news comes as Samsung is struggling with its memory chip-maker business. It has been lagging behind rivals like SK Hynix and TSMC in the global artificial intelligence chip market.

In October, Samsung said questions had arisen about its "fundamental technological competitiveness and the future of the company".

In a shareholder meeting last week, Han and other top executives told investors that they were expecting 2025 to be a difficult year.