Samsung Electronics wants to dominate cutting-edge chipmaking

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICSSESESESE () is a behemoth. The South Korean tech company is the crown jewel of the mighty Samsung , as the country’s conglomerates are known. It makes more smartphones than any other company in the world, as well as home-entertainment systems and appliances. It dominates the manufacturing of memory chips, which are used to store data on electronic devices and whose price has been pushed up by the global semiconductor shortage. ’s annual revenues of $200bn are not much lower than those of Apple, the most valuable firm in history, and it is sitting on a cash pile of $100bn.Now both and its parent group, whose name means “three stars”, are entering a critical new chapter. In August Lee Jae-yong, the scion of the family which founded Samsung in 1938, was released from prison, where he spent two stints after a conviction for his involvement in a bribery scandal. He is finally taking full control of the empire from his late father, Lee Kun-hee, who died last year. Succession was complicated first by the elder Lee’s six-year coma, then by his son’s bribery conviction, linked to ’s efforts to win the government’s backing for a merger of two Samsung subsidiaries that would cement his control.