In 2018 Samsung Electronics conducted a 50: 1 stock split.
As a result, the number of shareholders, which was about 140,000 at the end of 2017, increased to 5.04 million (end of 2021), riding on the "Togaku Ali Boom" in 2020 ("Ali" is an individual investor).
With a population of about 50 million in South Korea, one in ten is a shareholder of Samsung Electronics.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., which has become a "national stock" in this way, has launched an exceptional shareholder return policy three times: November 2016, October 2017, and January 2021.
The regular dividend, which was 3.1 trillion won in 2016, tripled to 9.8 trillion won in 2021. In April 2021, there was a special dividend of 10 trillion won.
While many Korean companies are reluctant to pay dividends and tend to ignore small shareholders and try to increase retained earnings as much as possible, Samsung Electronics is taking the lead in increasing dividends and returning them to shareholders.
The reason for the special dividend in April 2021 is that Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, who owns many Samsung Electronics stocks, paid the inheritance tax of the deceased chairman Lee Kun-hee. It is also said to be a burden.
Samsung Electronics released a new "Galaxy S22 (smartphone name)" earlier this year.
The "Galaxy S22 Series" was touted extensively with the highest performance ever, but ran into the "GOS" problem.
"GOS (Game Optimizing Service)" is a game optimization service, and discussions arose because the Galaxy S22 series, which was officially released on February 25, 2022, mandated this GOS function.
GOS is an application (basically installed) that is activated when users of devices run high-spec, high-quality games, and automatically adjusts the number of frames per second and GPU (graphics processing unit) performance. It is a device that intentionally reduces the performance of the smartphone to minimize heat generation and battery consumption.
This GOS has been around since 2016.
However, until now, it was possible to deactivate it by using a paid application that bypasses the GOS function.
The OS "One UI 4.1" applied to the S22 series released this year requires GOS to be installed and blocks detour routes.
Users who didn't know that were complaining that the performance restrictions became very strict on the S22 series, and that high-image games often had bugs and were not the place to enjoy the game.
It was rumored that the performance of the new Galaxy smartphone was not as good as advertised on the Internet IT club site, and on March 4, 2022, the cause of the performance deterioration through GOS was analyzed.
As a result, it was suspected that the GPU speed of the apps classified as games was intentionally reduced, while the performance test adjusted the GPU speed to the original GPU speed.
As a result of investigating for such fraud with the cross-platform benchmark tool "Geekbench", it was judged to be a fact, and among Samsung Electronics' Galaxy S series, Galaxy S10, S20, S21, S22 product group from the benchmark list I removed it.
So why did Samsung Electronics do such a sigh?
First of all, Samsung says that when playing mobile games, fever increases and it is related to user safety.
Samsung has had a painful experience of recalling the explosion of the smartphone "Galaxy Note 7" released in 2016.
Therefore, he wants to avoid an increase in calorific value in consideration of "safety".
However, if the heat generation gradually increases, you can still tell that the performance will drop, GOS will drop the performance as soon as you start the game.
Furthermore, it is said that performance will drop not only when using games but also when using communication tools such as Instagram and LINE.
Users have criticized it as "deceiving consumers."
In particular, a user who bought the latest Galaxy S22 appealed, "If you speed up Porsche at 100 km / h, would you buy it?"
As of March 4, 1,300 people have joined the group preparing a class action proceeding for the Samsung Electronics GOS issue.
It also develops a boycott movement by requesting refunds and canceling reservations.
In addition, at Samsung Electronics' shareholders' meeting held on March 16, shareholders voted against the proposal to appoint No Taemun MX division manager, who is responsible for the GOS issue, as an internal director.
As a result, the market share in the global market is also getting wrinkled.
In the United States, proceedings have been filed in federal court in New Jersey through "top-class action," a law firm specializing in class action proceedings.
The proceedings are for models that have been evacuated from Geekbench, such as the Galaxy S22 series, Galaxy S21, and Galaxy S20.
In 2021, Samsung Electronics' global market share increased by 6% year-on-year to 217 million units shipped, and its global market share was 19.45%, ranking first.
Meanwhile, Apple, which ranks second, shipped 237.9 million units, up 18% year-on-year, with a global market share of 17.1%.
Samsung Electronics still holds the top share in the global market, but the gap with Apple is getting narrower.
Since Samsung Electronics has become a national stock, Samsung Electronics' shareholders' meeting will be seen at a glance.
In particular, at this year's general meeting of shareholders, Vice Chairman Han Jung-hee announced that he would "expand the growth engine by discovering new businesses such as Metaverse and robots."
In addition, he enthusiastically said, "The first step in discovering new businesses is the robot business."
"The policy is to accumulate robot technology in various fields and take the lead so that future generations can experience robots that accompany them in their daily lives. We consider robots as an area of new opportunities to interact with customers, strengthen our dedicated organization, and make robots a new business. We are promoting it as. "
Samsung Electronics is accelerating the development of the robot industry by upgrading the existing Robot Commercialization Task Force (TF) to the robot business team through organizational restructuring in 2021.
In 2021, the Robot TF was newly established in the consumer electronics sector and reorganized as a permanent organization within a year.
In August, Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong announced that he would invest 240 trillion won in new business fields in the future, including the robot industry, over the next three years.
Since announcing Samsung robots in 2019 at CES, the world's largest consumer electronics and information technology exhibition, we have been showing off our robots every year.
With the voice of a crane that Samsung is embarking on the robot industry, robot-related stocks are rising every day in the Korean stock market, demonstrating Samsung power without regret.
Until now, under the Moon Jae-in administration, Samsung Electronics could not stand out much due to the alleged bribery of former President Park Geun-hye and the death of Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who was a spiritual supporter. ..
However, I am looking forward to seeing Samsung Electronics show its true potential by changing to the new government.