On 6 may, samsung electronic china official network issued a bulletin stating that samsung electronics had decided to stop selling all household electrical products containing television and monitors on the mainland market of china. At one point, the term “trigger exits from the chinese market” gave rise to much debate。
A comprehensive inventory of the three stars’ development process reveals that this is not a simple retreat, but rather a strategic transformation of samsung’s own and, more importantly, china’s structural transformation using foreign capital, reflecting the profound changes in the global industrial chain and china’s economic development。
First, the strategic transformation of the enterprise itself。
Samsung’s first-quarter financial report shows that samsung electronics has a profit of 572,000 trillion won in the first quarter, an increase of 756 per cent over the same year, exceeding 43. 6 trillion won in the year 2025。
Of this, the semiconductor business performed well, with a profit of 53. 7 trillion won, which was 47. 82 times higher than the same year, accounting for 93. 4 per cent of the company's overall operating profits. Correspondingly, three-star electronic visual displays and business profits for household electricity are only 0. 2 trillion won, a decline of 33. 3 per cent over the same period。
It is clear that, as a global electronics giant across a wide range of fields, including semiconductor, display panel, mobile phone, and consumer electronics, the strategic weight of the three stars in different business segments will be adjusted by the changing experiences of the global production chain。
Currently, the global domestic electricity market is increasingly competitive. In particular, in the chinese market, local brands such as tcl, u. S. A. And hale have emerged, and the product advantages and profit margins of samsung electricity have been significantly reduced. Not only does china’s own brands have greater advantages in terms of product value, but they also create insurmountable barriers to competition in the context of intellectualization, localization of service networks, etc。
As a result, samsung abandoned its home electricity business in the chinese market, with the allocation of company resources to a more competitive business block based on rational and normal strategic adjustments。
China’s investment-led structural transformation。
Instead of withdrawing from china, samsung is a living example of china’s structural transformation。
Since entering china in 1992, samsung has been following the pace of china's development, adapting to the changes in the chinese market and upgrading its industrial layout。
As often as samsung itself is strategically adjusted in different business segments, its home electricity, though withdrawn from the chinese market, continues to grow in high-end manufacturing and r & d layouts in china. By the end of 2025, samsung cumulatively invested more than $55 billion in china, with investments in cutting-edge industries accounting for nearly 90 per cent。
In february this year, samsung officially produced a volume ultrasound diagnostic machine at suzhou factories, adding high-end medical equipment to the line. As early as 2018, the samsung electric power plant was built in tianjin as one of the world's leading mlcc plants, one of the main production bases of samsung in this field. The tristar sian chip plant has become one of the most important flash chip production sites overseas。
Through the restructuring of samsung’s business configuration in china, we have seen a profound shift in china’s capital-inducing structure: foreign investment in china is no longer a factor-based cost advantage, but rather a focus on china’s large market, full industrial chain, high-quality talent resources, and innovation ecology, accelerating its deployment to high-end manufacturing, science, technology, and innovation。
The data show that in 2025, the actual use of foreign investment in scientific research and technical services in my country accounted for nearly one fifth of the total amount of foreign investment that i actually used, a steady increase over the seventh consecutive year and 3. 8 times that of 2018. In 2025, there were 14,000 new foreign enterprises in this area, an increase of 27. 2 per cent over the same period. In recent years, research and development centres of transnational corporations, such as roth diagnosis, aslicon, philips, porsche and schneider electric, have landed in china。
Samsung’s exit from china is not a sign of “evacuation” of foreign investment, but rather a result of a two-way journey between the strategic transformation of firms and the upgrading of chinese industries. In the future, as china continues to expand its openness to the outside world, optimizes its business environment, and strengthens its innovation drive, it will certainly attract more fdi into china’s innovative ecology and write a new chapter in global industrial chain cooperation。
