{"id":125478,"date":"2026-08-19T23:12:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T23:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/125478\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T23:12:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T23:12:17","slug":"samsungs-consumer-arm-vows-to-fight-losses-by-grabbing-market-share","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/125478\/","title":{"rendered":"Samsung’s Consumer Arm Vows to Fight Losses by Grabbing Market Share"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) said its Device eXperience (DX) division, which posted its first-ever quarterly operating loss, may struggle to recover results for some time but will push a head-on strategy of expanding market share. While surging memory chip prices are driving up costs, the company plans to pursue aggressive sales growth to strengthen its competitiveness over the medium and long term.<\/p>\n

In particular, Samsung said it will maintain a strict separation from its Device Solutions (DS) semiconductor division to secure customer trust, even as memory supply remains unstable.<\/p>\n

According to industry sources on the 19th, Samsung’s DX division held a briefing on business conditions for staff that day, led by Chief Executive and division head Roh Tae-moon. At the briefing, employees raised the division’s worsening earnings and the compensation gap with the DS division, pressing management for responses.<\/p>\n

Management explained that because semiconductors now account for a much larger share of the cost structure of Galaxy smartphones, the Mobile eXperience (MX) business unit may find it difficult to escape losses for some time if memory prices keep rising.<\/p>\n

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The DX division, centered on the MX business unit, posted a quarterly operating loss of about 800 billion won ($577 million) in the second quarter of this year, its first since earnings tracking began in 2011. Strong sales of the Galaxy S26 series, launched early this year, lifted second-quarter revenue 14% from a year earlier, but profitability deteriorated sharply as memory costs mounted.<\/p>\n

As global big tech firms including Nvidia secure large volumes of high-performance memory for artificial intelligence server chips, the memory shortage is increasingly likely to be prolonged. As a result, the company remains locked in a structure where it must absorb high memory prices even as smartphone sales rise.<\/p>\n

Chicken Game Aimed at Faltering Chinese Rivals<\/p>\n

\"EmployeesEmployees stand at Huawei’s artificial intelligence (AI) app launch event held in Jinan, Shandong Province, China. EPA-Yonhap<\/p>\n

Union members chant slogans at the Samsung Electronics Union Joint Struggle Headquarters’ “Change Transparently, Realize Cap Abolition \u2014 April 23 Struggle Rally” held in front of Samsung Electronics’ Pyeongtaek Campus in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, on April 23. Yonhap<\/p>\n

A view of Samsung Electronics’ Pyeongtaek plant. Photo courtesy of Samsung Electronics<\/p>\n

Samsung Electronics’ Seocho office building. Photo courtesy of Samsung Electronics<\/p>\n

Roh Tae-moon, president of Samsung Electronics’ Device eXperience (DX) division, presents the foldable phone business vision at a press conference held right after the “Galaxy Unpacked 2026” new product launch event at the Old Billingsgate exhibition hall in London, U.K., on the 23rd (local time). Photo courtesy of Samsung Electronics<\/p>\n

Even in these conditions, Samsung has chosen a strategy of expanding market share. The plan is to seize on the difficulties facing Chinese low- and mid-priced smartphone makers, which face heavier cost burdens and are taking a direct hit from rising memory prices, to boost sales volumes and restore profitability once memory prices stabilize.<\/p>\n

Some in the industry say Samsung could gain the upper hand in a long-term battle for market share, given its overwhelming scale and brand competitiveness in the global smartphone market compared with Chinese makers.<\/p>\n

On the 7th of this month, Samsung launched the Galaxy Z Fold8, a new form-factor product that is the first in its foldable phone lineup to adopt a 4:3 screen ratio. The Galaxy Z8 series, including the Galaxy Z Fold8, recorded 1.44 million preorders in the week before launch, the most ever for a Galaxy smartphone.<\/p>\n

Samsung emphasized to employees that it will continue to prepare innovative products next year, according to sources.<\/p>\n

Chip and Consumer Divisions to Stay Separate<\/p>\n

Chinese Wall Needed to Win Customer Trust<\/p>\n

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Samsung reaffirmed that it will maintain its existing principle of separate operations regarding the compensation gap with the DS division raised within the DX division.<\/p>\n

Internal discontent has grown as the DX division posted losses under rising cost burdens while the DS division recorded record-high results during a memory boom. This year’s performance bonuses are expected to reach hundreds of millions of won per person in the memory business unit, while some DX division employees complain of a sense of deprivation over relatively low compensation.<\/p>\n

In response, Samsung stressed the “Chinese Wall” and its principle of performance-based rewards. A Chinese Wall refers to a mechanism that restricts the exchange of information between divisions to prevent conflicts of interest. Samsung explained that only by keeping the DS and DX divisions separate can it maintain the trust of its clients.<\/p>\n

A prime example is Apple. Apple is a client of Samsung’s memory business unit but a rival to its MX business unit. The logic is that if customer information from the memory business unit were shared with the MX business unit, global clients might be reluctant to do business with Samsung.<\/p>\n

An industry official said Samsung was able to win the trust of global clients and secure competitiveness in the memory market because it ran its component and finished-product businesses separately. “Without this separate structure, even the race to become the world’s No. 1 in memory would not have been easy,” the official said.<\/p>\n

Rewards Go Where Performance Is<\/p>\n

DX Union Plans Seocho Rally on the 21st<\/p>\n

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Samsung also stressed that its principle of performance-based rewards \u2014 placing rewards where there is performance \u2014 has been the foundation of the company’s growth. It said it cannot change its operating principle by sharing the DS division’s bonus funds with the DX division.<\/p>\n

DX division employees argue that money earned by the DX division during past semiconductor downturns was used to support the DS division. However, Samsung explained that the DS division later repaid those funds with interest, and that some of the recent bonus funds for the MX business unit reflected interest received from the DS division, according to sources.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Donghaeng, the largest union in the DX division, plans to hold a large-scale rally on the 21st near Samsung’s Seocho building in Seoul’s Seocho district. The union expects about 3,000 people to attend.<\/p>\n

Since agreeing on wage negotiations in May, the Donghaeng union has argued that the performance gap between DX and DS division workers is excessive and is demanding compensation of about 1,000 treasury shares per DX employee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) said its Device eXperience (DX) division, which posted its first-ever quarterly operating loss, may struggle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[64731,6942,11589,8228,64730,127,276,19655],"class_list":["post-125478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-samsung-electronics","tag-chinese-wall","tag-dx-division","tag-galaxy-z-fold8","tag-memory-prices","tag-quarterly-operating-loss","tag-samsung","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-smartphone-market-share"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}