Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) has officially announced plans to withdraw from the TV and home appliance business in China after 34 years. The company intends to shed the underperforming business and instead pursue a "selection and concentration" strategy aimed at expanding semiconductor and mobile product sales.
According to industry sources on Thursday, Samsung China Investment Corporation (SCIC), Samsung Electronics' Chinese subsidiary, held an employee briefing that day and announced the withdrawal from the TV and home appliance business. It also began notifying local business partners of the decision. The move formalizes reports of Samsung's exit from the Chinese TV and home appliance market that recently surfaced in foreign media.
With this move, Samsung Electronics will halt TV and home appliance sales in China. The company will maintain its remaining businesses in medical devices, mobile products, and semiconductors. SCIC consists of the Consumer Electronics (CE) division, which handles TVs, home appliances, and medical devices, and the Mobile eXperience (MX) division, which handles mobile products. Of these, the CE division will be significantly downsized, with only the medical device-related organization remaining.
The company plans to continue existing TV and home appliance production at its Suzhou plant, a local production base, for export purposes. Semiconductor factories will also continue to operate without disruption. Local research and development (R&D) operations will likewise continue, Samsung Electronics explained.
Samsung Electronics emphasized that this measure is part of its selection and concentration strategy for the Chinese business. "Considering the rapidly changing internal and external business environment, we have decided to restructure our business in mainland China," the company said. "In particular, we will strive to provide the best mobile products and services to Chinese consumers with Galaxy AI at the forefront, and will continue to offer specialized smartphones and services such as Xinjitianxia."
Samsung Electronics' withdrawal from the Chinese TV and home appliance market comes 34 years after it entered the market following the establishment of Korea-China diplomatic relations in 1992. Samsung Electronics began operating its Tianjin TV factory in 1994 to mass-produce color TVs, and established a Suzhou production subsidiary the following year.
In the 2000s, Samsung actively captured the local premium home appliance market with products such as "Zipel," Korea's first side-by-side refrigerator launched in 2002, which was priced at 10 times the cost of an ordinary refrigerator. In 2006, it rose to the top of the Chinese TV market, selling 3 million units annually of its "Bordeaux TV" liquid crystal display (LCD) model. Samsung maintained its market share lead with ultra-high-definition (UHD) TVs in the early 2010s, benefiting in particular from the Korean Wave fueled by dramas such as "My Love from the Star." A representative example is the Chef Collection refrigerator, which earned the nickname "Jun Ji-hyun refrigerator" after featuring the Korean Wave actress as its advertising model.
However, Xiaomi entered the TV market in 2014, and in 2017, the THAAD dispute triggered an intensified boycott of Korean products in China, causing Samsung Electronics to begin struggling. This led to a "patriotic consumption" trend in which Chinese consumers favored domestic products, and local powerhouses such as TCL and Hisense emerged alongside Xiaomi. Samsung Electronics, which began losing market share, shut down its Tianjin TV factory in 2020, and has now made the decision to exit the sales business altogether.
According to Chinese market research firm RUNTO, local companies such as Hisense, TCL, and Xiaomi accounted for 94.1 percent of the Chinese TV market last year, while foreign companies including Samsung Electronics, Sony, Philips, and Sharp combined shipped just 1 million units, accounting for only 3 percent of the market. Another market research firm, AVC Revo, estimated that local companies such as Midea and Haier commanded 62 percent of the Chinese home appliance market last year as well.
Samsung Electronics' smartphone market share in China is also known to stand at just 1 percent, but unlike home appliances, the company has decided to steadily strengthen investment in the business, focusing on premium phones. As smartphones are evolving once again into AI phones equipped with artificial intelligence (AI), the company appears to have judged that it has a chance of winning by competing on technological capabilities through the "Galaxy S26" series and other products.
With some Chinese manufacturers that have focused on low- and mid-priced products recently reducing this year's shipments or even shutting down their smartphone businesses due to "chipflation" (the surge in semiconductor prices), there are also expectations that Samsung Electronics, with its relatively lower cost burden, may find an opportunity.
