Nationwide Tour
Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong is finalizing the schedule to meet Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai during his visit to Silicon Valley during a business trip to the United States that will last until mid-May. It is analyzed for the purpose of envisioning Samsung’s future business and strengthening cooperation between companies through exchanges with movers and shakers in the information and communication technology (ICT) industry.
Chairman Lee will leave for the United States this weekend at the earliest to accompany President Yoon Suk-yeol’s state visit to the United States. Chairman Lee’s business trip to the United States is said to be scheduled for the second week of May (from May 10 to 16).
At the beginning of this visit to the United States, Lee plans to carry out activities as a member of the Korean economic mission. He plans to provide support for intergovernmental negotiations related to the US CHIPS Act and inform US government officials of Samsung’s situation.
From the end of this month when the official schedule for the economic delegation ends, Lee will begin activities related to Samsung’s U.S. business in earnest. The United States is the largest market for Samsung Electronics with sales of its local subsidiaries reaching 86 trillion won (US$65 billion) in 2022. Investment projects are underway in the semiconductor and battery domains in the United States.
Lee will follow his schedule in the middle and eastern United States in the first week of May. Verizon and other U.S. telecommunications companies are mentioned as the major companies to be visited by Lee.
Lee may visit the headquarters of a biotech company in the eastern United States. Moderna in Massachusetts of the United States is famous for its close relationship with Samsung Group. Samsung Biologics produced COVID-19 vaccines for Moderna.
After that, Lee will move to the western part of the United States. California and Washington are home to Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Tesla, which have cooperative or competing relationships with Samsung. It is evaluated as the best environment for Lee to envision future businesses.
Chairman Lee is finalizing an appointment to meet with CEO Tim Cook of Apple and CEO Sundar Pichai of Google. Apple is competing fiercely with Samsung Electronics in the smartphone market, but in the semiconductor and display fields, Apple is a big corporate customer of Samsung. For example, Samsung Display supplies organic light emitting diode (OLED) panels for the iPhone to Apple.
Pichai and Lee have been maintaining a close relationship. Since Google started its smartphone business with the Pixel phone in 2016, many people have believed that Samsung and Google are smartphone rivals, but, in fact, the two companies have maintained a close cooperative relationship for a long time. Samsung Electronics manufactures application processors (APs) for Google phones and Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors.
In January, Samsung Electronics and Google decided to strengthen cooperation in the field of mixed reality (XR) devices. Chairman Lee is expected to meet with CEO Pichai to discuss new businesses and negotiate conditions for setting Google as the basic search engine for Galaxy smartphones.
In Seattle, Washington, a two-hour flight from Silicon Valley, Lee is expected to meet with Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, and Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon. Microsoft and Amazon are among the world’s top three cloud computing companies and major customers of Samsung Electronics’ memory division. Samsung’s sensors or camera modules may go into self-driving cars that Amazon is developing.
Meanwhile, Lee is highly unlikely to visit the construction site for a new Samsung Electronics foundry plant in Taylor City, Texas, considering the political situation.