Editor’s note: This originally appeared on Analyse Asia, a weekly podcast hosted by Bernard Leong, dedicated to dissecting the pulse of business, technology, and media in Asia. The podcast features guests from Asia’s vibrant tech community.
Jan Dawson from Jackdaw Research, host of Beyond Devices and Tech Narratives podcast joined us in a two-part conversation discussing the tech narratives of the technology giants in Asia and Korean chaebol, the Samsung Group. In the second of the two-part conversation, we discussed the Samsung Group, and how the business is structured into various subsidiaries and the key executives who are behind the consumer electronics giant. Jan also explained the recent high profitability for Samsung in the 2nd quarter, 2017 and how it might approach the self-driving car space with the acquisition of Harmann Kardon.
Listen to the episode here or subscribe.
Here are the show notes and links to the discussion (with timestamps included):
- Jan Dawson (@jandawson), founder of Jackdaw research and host of the Beyond Devices and the Beyond Devices podcast (iTunes, SoundCloud) with Aaron Miller. [1:14]
- Contributor to Techpinions & Techpinions podcast (iTunes, SoundCloud)
- Tech Narratives (iTunes)
- Samsung Electronics in 2017 (Wikipedia, Samsung Electronics in Bloomberg, Reuters) [1:25]
- Quick Introduction: Samsung is a South Korean multinational electronics company headquartered in Suwon, South Korea with a market capitalization of approximately 367.8T won ~ US$330 billion. (Ref: Money, Power, Family: Inside South Korea’s Chaebol, NY Times)
- What is the mission & vision of the Samsung Conglomerate or in the Korean language, what we call the Chaebol? [1:49]
- How is the Samsung divided into separate subsidiaries and what are their key business lines? For example, their semiconductors and screens run independently from Apple, yet compete with them at the same time with the mobile phone with Samsung Galaxy 8. [2:57]
- Who are the key executives or board members of Samsung or their subsidiaries, for example, consumer electronics, mobility & components business relating to OLED screens & solid state drives in mobile phones? [7:00]
- Kwon Oh Hyun
- Yoon Boo Keun
- Shin Jong Kyun
- Samsung is expected to report the highest profit in Q2 2017 with revenue up 18% and profit up 72% from last year, where is the profitability coming from? [9:03]
- Is Samsung mobile growing or just in the plateau or even decline? [11:40]
- Given that it’s a year after the Samsung Note 7 debacle, in your opinion, do you think that the company has managed to recover from their setback with the Galaxy 8? [12:44]
- Will they rebrand the Note 8 or just stick with the brand name? [15:10]
- If we reverse this hypothetically to Apple, has it been much worse for them? [16:27] (Check out Jan Dawson and Aaron Miller’s “Beyond Devices” episode 63 where they did an excellent discussion on brand recalls in history in context to the Samsung Note 7).
- Is Samsung’s recent acquisition of Harman Kardon signaled their focus into the autonomous vehicles space? [18:49]
- Additional reference: A deep dive on Samsung Electronics by Jan Dawson in Techpinions (requires subscription).
- In Verne Harnish’s “Fortune: the Greatest Decisions of All Time,” Lee Kuh Hee, the founder & Chairman of Samsung made an important decision to let its star performers take a sabbatical and it helped to internationalize the company.
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