엑시노스의 딜레마: 삼성전자의 기술 자존심과 수익성 사이의 위태로운 줄타기 > K-wave Trends

The reason behind Samsung Electronics' decision to install the 'Exynos 2600' designed by its System LSI Division in the Galaxy Z Flip 8 is the management's strong will to overcome the crisis in the semiconductor business. Currently, the System LSI and Foundry divisions are struggling to get out of the swamp of deficit due to stabilizing yields and the enormous burden of development costs, and the only sure way to overcome this is to create internal demand. Even though Qualcomm offered attractive conditions by lowering the price of Snapdragon to defend its market share, Samsung Electronics chose an 'internal push' strategy to maintain the ecosystem of its chipsets and increase the utilization rate of the non-memory sector. This decision appears to be an inevitable choice to protect the group's performance, but the MX division, which has to bear the cost burden, is being forced to make a painful sacrifice.

The conflict surrounding this chipset dualization strategy, combined with the compensation system within Samsung Electronics, has caused a huge wave of controversy over internal equity. This is because an abnormal structure has been formed in which employees in the non-memory division of the DS division, which is recording a loss, are guaranteed extraordinary performance bonuses, while employees in the DX division, which has actually driven the surplus, have to be satisfied with relatively low compensation. In particular, in a situation where the MX division purchased its own expensive chipsets to make up for the performance of the loss division, the dissatisfaction of internal employees reached a critical point as the gap in performance bonuses widened. The labor union also directly criticized this unreasonable compensation structure and demanded separate negotiations by sector, which went beyond just financial issues and resulted in deep distrust within the organization.

Meanwhile, although Samsung Foundry is at the center of conflict internally, it is achieving unexpected results externally, especially in the Chinese market. Major automakers, including BYD, China's No. 1 electric vehicle company, are aware of SMIC's technological limitations and are knocking on Samsung Electronics' 2-nano and 4-nano processes. This suggests that Samsung Electronics' advanced processing technology is still evaluated as a strong alternative despite the US's regulations on mass semiconductors. In particular, in the field of electronics such as autonomous driving chips, Samsung's GAA technology is providing trust to Chinese companies along with stable yields, and there is even the possibility that the scope of cooperation will expand to AI semiconductors in the future. Regardless of the internal controversy over the adoption of Exynos, the foundry division is trying to find clues to improving its structure by securing external customers.

Samsung Electronics' future strategy goes beyond simply adopting chipsets and is rapidly moving towards 'open innovation' through active combination with external technologies. A representative example is the decision to break away from the closed culture that insisted on using its own OS or proprietary solutions for security and pride reasons and to boldly introduce proven external AI services such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini into in-house work. This is a change that reflects pragmatism and survival strategy, the core values ​​of the 'New Samsung' that Chairman Lee Jae-yong has been emphasizing, and reflects a sense of crisis that the company will no longer be able to keep up with the pace of the AI ​​era if it only insists on its own technological capabilities. Now, Samsung has chosen the practical route of maximizing productivity by combining its self-developed ‘Samsung Gauss’ with external services.

The market environment is also causing Samsung Electronics to worry deeply. The rapid rise in component prices, known as chip inflation, and the decline in smartphone demand are direct factors that threaten Samsung's profit structure. Although they are trying to dominate the market with new form factors such as foldable phones and AI smart glasses, the increase in costs due to the adoption of high-end components is a factor that can hinder product competitiveness. In particular, amid the prevailing forecast that global smartphone shipments will hit their lowest level in years, Samsung must solve the difficult task of adjusting its product mix and optimizing marketing costs. Although the electronics business in collaboration with Harman is doing well, recording an operating profit of more than 1 trillion won, protecting the profitability of the mobile division is still the biggest mountain Samsung Electronics must overcome this year.