Shareholders Moving to Hold Management Responsible
As the controversy over the game optimizing service (GOS) of the Galaxy S22 is continuing, minority shareholders of Samsung Electronics have begun to take collective action. They are moving to vote against the appointment of Roh Tae-moon, the new chief of the company's mobile division, as an in-house director at the general shareholders’ meeting slated for March 16.
On March 7, the stock price of Samsung Electronics closed at 71,100 won, down 1.96 percent (1,400 won) from the previous trading day. At one time during the day, it fell to 69,900 won, dropping below the 70,000 won line.
Recently, Samsung Electronics is under fire for issues related to the forced use of GOS in the Galaxy S22 series. GOS automatically lowers smartphone performance such as graphics and resolutions during high-end game play. It works to prevent smartphones’ heat generation when playing games and reduce battery consumption.
GOS is a basic function that is installed in Galaxy smartphones, but Galaxy models launched before the Galaxy S22 have buttons that allow users to turn off GOS themselves. However, beginning from the Galaxy S22 series, users cannot stop or delete GOS. As a result, they are complaining about the forced execution of GOS, which reduces smartphone performance when using certain apps such as games.
Some minority shareholders are criticizing Roh Tae-moon, head of Samsung Electronics’ MX division, saying top executives should be held responsible for the GOS fiasco.
Meanwhile, as the controversy continues, Samsung Electronics has come up with a system update plan to make the GOS function optional.