With advance notice from media reviewers, Samsung acted quickly
before releasing the Galaxy Fold into the hands of the public. On April 22,
four days before the release, Samsung announced it was postponing its
launch of the phone indefinitely.
“It was embarrassing. I pushed it [the Galaxy Fold] through before it
was ready,” CEO D.J. Koh admitted to The Independent.
Stephanie Choi, head of global marketing strategy, issued a statement
that older Samsung Men would have once seen as insubordination, worthy
of banishment. She attributed part of the failure to Chairman Lee II’s New
Management Initiative—that fateful campaign, kicked off in Frankfurt in
1993, when the chairman sought to inject his vision into Samsung, telling
his executives to “change everything.”
“We make what can’t be made, and do what can’t be done,” she told The
Independent. “This [Galaxy Fold issue] is unfortunately sometimes part of
this process.”
One week later, Samsung’s profits plummeted. The memory
semiconductor market—the bedrock of Samsung’s empire—was volatile
and crowded.
Samsung announced a new expansion called “Semiconductor Vision
2030.” It pledged an investment of $115 billion in another promising field
of semiconductors—non-memory chips—that power rising technologies
like autonomous vehicles, medical robots, and devices that depend on
artificial intelligence.
“The government will actively support this mission,” South Korean
President Moon announced at a Samsung semiconductor plant.
“As you asked, Samsung will become the first in the non-memory
sector as well as in the memory sector,” Jay told President Moon.
Not everyone was bullish on the new initiative. Samsung, after all, was
responding to an industry-wide crisis in low chip prices by investing in
more and different chips—with the help of the Korean government, as it
had in the past. And perhaps it was too late. The expansion would have
made more financial sense when chip profits were bustling.
“Some experts think that Samsung’s management isn’t as innovative as it
used to be,” the Hankyoreh newspaper wrote about Semiconductor Vision
- “The son has parted ways with his father, who focused on blazing
trails and shaking things up at every turn.”