Samsung reportedly suffering from infighting; may impact upcoming smartphone plans, says report

ET News, Amy Fan and Joseph Tsai, DIGITIMES [Thursday 24 July 2014]

Samsung Electronics' wireless business unit is reportedly seeing infighting between the manufacturing and purchasing departments since the manufacturing arm is gradually increasing the adoption of in-house-made components, edging out the purchasing arm's presence in the business unit, according to a Korean-language ET News report.

Defects in the Galaxy S5's camera module, which is manufactured by Samsung's plants in Vietnam, also increased the purchasing department's dissatisfaction with the manufacturing department since Samsung's in-house-made components have no advantages in terms of quality or costs compared to those made by outside makers. However, the purchasing team still has pressure from the manufacturing team to give in-house products the priority, the report noted.

The head of the purchasing department JK Kim is considered an important right-hand man of Choi Gee-Sung, the head of Corporate Strategy at Samsung and former CEO, while the head of the manufacturing department Kim Jong-ho is a trusted subordinate of Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of the company. The gradually rising internal conflict is expected to shake up Samsung's operations, which is run jointly by Choi and Lee, the report said.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.