Before now, Samsung usually reshuffles top roles in December, but this recent decision came midyear. The company did not give a reason.

Won-jin moves into the role from Samsung’s Global Marketing Office. Before joining the company in 2014, he worked at Google, where he held senior positions, including a leadership role in Korea. 

Over the years, he has been linked to the growth of Samsung’s TV and mobile services operations.

His appointment also breaks the tradition of placing engineers in charge of Samsung’s TV division. This time, it has chosen someone with a background in marketing, content and services.

Samsung’s TV business is facing slower demand and higher costs. The company said last month that profit from its TV segment fell in the first quarter, as material expenses increased and sales did not keep pace.

Competition is also getting worse as Chinese brands such as TCL Electronics and Hisense are expanding quickly, helped by strong domestic demand and lower pricing. At the same time, Sony has entered a new partnership in home entertainment, adding pressure across the market.

Samsung still leads global TV shipments, a position it has held since 2006. However, the gap is narrowing with Chinese manufacturers gaining share and expanding into more markets.

Inside the company, the TV and home appliance division recorded losses in late 2025, including a sharp deficit in the fourth quarter. It returned to profit in the first quarter of 2026, but the recovery is still fragile.

In response, Samsung is adjusting its strategy, cutting back on lower-margin production and focusing on markets where it performs better, including the United States. Reports have also shown the company may scale down or stop TV sales in China this year.

At the same time, Samsung is putting more weight on services. Platforms such as Samsung TV Plus and its Art Store are expected to generate steady income beyond the hardware sales business. The company is also expanding artificial intelligence features across its TV range, from premium models to entry-level sets.

Marketing will play a bigger role as well, with major events like the 2026 FIFA World Cup approaching, Samsung is likely to step up promotions to drive demand.

The two companies confirmed that future Specs devices will run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR platform, extending a partnership that already spans several generations of Snap’s earlier Spectacles hardware.

Those earlier devices mainly targeted developers and never reached wide consumer distribution in their AR form.

Snap has been building smart glasses for years. It first entered the category in 2016 with camera-equipped Spectacles.

Since then, it has moved towards more advanced augmented reality designs that place digital elements into the real world through see-through lenses. Those newer versions stayed within limited releases, largely focused on developers and testing.

Now the company is preparing a wider consumer rollout under its Specs unit, which it formally separated earlier this year to focus entirely on wearable computing.

The upcoming glasses will run standalone and are designed to overlay digital content onto physical surroundings, with built-in audio, visuals and interaction features.

The companies say the new hardware will rely on edge computing and on-device processing. This allows data to be handled directly on the device instead of relying heavily on cloud systems.

The approach is important to Snap’s vision for faster responses and more private interactions in everyday use.

Snap’s leadership sees the project as a step towards a more integrated form of computing.

“We believe the future of computing will be more human and grounded in the real world,” said Evan Spiegel, co-founder and chief executive of Snap Inc.

Qualcomm also described the partnership around more responsive and context-aware devices.

“The next era of computing will be defined by devices that understand what you see, hear and say,” said Cristiano Amon, president and chief executive of Qualcomm Incorporated.

The collaboration builds on more than five years of joint work between both firms. Qualcomm chips have powered earlier Snap Spectacles, particularly models aimed at developers experimenting with augmented reality tools.

This time, both companies say they want to scale that work for consumers. The agreement covers long-term roadmap planning, shared technical development, and support for developers building applications for the Specs platform.

Snap says this should help create a more stable environment for software creators working on AR experiences.

Competition in the smart glasses space is also intensifying. Meta Platforms has already gained early traction with its Ray-Ban smart glasses built with EssilorLuxottica.

Other major players, including Google, Samsung and Apple, are also developing their own versions of AR eyewear, with launches expected over the next few years.

This development comes at a sensitive time for Snap as it tries to expand beyond social media into hardware and immersive computing.

The Specs unit now sits at the centre of that strategy, with plans to attract external investment and build a long-term product line.

The agreement gives the unit a clearer technical base as it prepares for its first consumer product launch.

The event will begin at 10am Pacific time, 1pm Eastern, 7pm in Nigeria and 6pm in the UK, and will be streamed live on Samsung’s website and YouTube channel.

The company is expected to introduce the Galaxy S26 series, which will include the Galaxy S26, S26+ and S26 Ultra. 

Ahead of the launch, Samsung said the new devices are “built to simplify everyday interactions, inspire confidence and make Galaxy AI feel seamlessly integrated from the moment it’s in hand.”

One of the features teased is a new privacy display expected to debut on the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. The feature will allow users to hide selected areas of the screen from people nearby, including notifications that may contain sensitive information.

Reports say Samsung will again split its choice of processors by market. Devices sold in the United States and China are expected to run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, while other regions may receive models powered by Samsung’s Exynos 2600 processor. 

While Qualcomm chips have traditionally outperformed Exynos in speed and heat management, the gap has narrowed in recent years.

Battery and charging upgrades are also expected. According to SamMobile, the Galaxy S26 will come with a 5,100mAh battery, with support for 60W wired charging and 25W wireless charging.

Samsung is also likely to refresh its audio lineup at the event. The Galaxy Buds 4 wireless earbuds are expected to be announced, with a redesigned look following complaints that the previous model closely resembled Apple’s AirPods.

Alongside the product launch, Samsung has opened pre-registration for customers interested in the new devices. 

In the UK, anyone who registers before 6pm on February 25 will receive a £30 voucher to spend on Galaxy ecosystem products. 

Customers who go on to pre-order a device will receive a larger incentive, including 512GB of storage for the price of 256GB, a discount valued at £170. 

Samsung is also offering a chance to win one of ten £500 vouchers through a prize draw.

Further details about the Samsung Galaxy S26 range have also surfaced through leaks. German publication WinFuture reported that the standard Galaxy S26 could start at €999 (roughly N1.6 million), while the S26+ may be priced at €1,269 (about N2.1 million).

The Galaxy S26 Ultra is expected to cost at least €1,469 (N2.4 million). All three models are tipped to launch in white, blue, black and purple.

In terms of specifications, the Galaxy S26 is expected to feature a 6.3-inch Full HD+ display, while the S26+ may come with a larger 6.7-inch Quad HD+ screen. 

Both are said to use Dynamic AMOLED 2X panels with a 120Hz refresh rate and Gorilla Armor 2 protection.

The Ultra model is expected to feature a 6.9-inch display and a more advanced camera system, led by a 200-megapixel main sensor. It is also reported to support up to 16GB of RAM, up to 1TB of storage, and 60W wired fast charging.

Samsung has not confirmed pricing or full specifications ahead of the event. Those details are expected to be announced officially during the Galaxy Unpacked presentation later this month.

This results from a restructuring inside BBK Electronics as competition increases and growth slows across the global smartphone market.

Under the new structure, OPPO will operate as the lead brand, while Realme and OnePlus function as its official sub-brands. OPPO will be in charge of product direction and shared operations, while allowing Realme to continue targeting price-sensitive buyers and OnePlus to focus on premium smartphones.

The decision follows an internal reshuffle announced by OPPO in January 2026, aimed at cutting overlapping costs across engineering, marketing and customer support. Rather than running multiple teams in parallel, BBK is now concentrating its resources under fewer command lines as smartphone demand softens worldwide.

BBK Electronics already holds a solid position, particularly in India. Its combined brands, OPPO, Vivo, Realme, OnePlus and iQOO, controlled close to 48% of the Indian smartphone market by the second quarter of 2025, up from 46.5% in 2022. 

Globally, BBK’s portfolio ranks among the top five vendors, placing it in direct competition with Samsung and Apple.

Realme’s inclusion under OPPO is as much about margin pressure as scale. The brand has built a strong following in India and Southeast Asia and has always ranked among the top five by shipments.

In Europe, however, its low-price strategy brought volume but struggled to produce sustainable profits. Folding into OPPO allows Realme to lean on a larger supply chain and a shared research base.

Development expenses are increasing, consumers are holding on to phones longer, and manufacturers are betting heavily on foldable designs and software-led features to stand out.

The structure also reveals a playbook used before in China’s smartphone industry, where multiple brands target different income groups while sharing back-end systems. The difference now is the level of central management.

OPPO’s restructuring is a move from expansion to efficiency and this could enhance competition, further crowding out smaller operators.

The company wants to scale first, refine later, and lock users into an AI-driven system before competitors can meet up.

By the end of last year, around 400 million Samsung devices already carried Gemini-powered features. That figure will double as the company extends AI beyond smartphones to tablets, televisions and home appliances. 

Beyond a feature upgrade, Samsung is enhancing how its products work and how users interact with them.

“We will apply AI to all products, all functions, and all services as quickly as possible,” T M Roh said in his first interview since becoming co-CEO.

As the largest supporter of Google’s Android platform, Samsung is also giving Google a massive consumer advantage at a time when AI models are fighting for everyday relevance. 

Every Samsung Galaxy phone shipped with Gemini baked in is another front opened in Google’s move against OpenAI and others.

Global Smartphone Shipments to Fall 2.1% in 2026 as High Memory Prices Hit Low-End Devices Hard

The strategy is already visible in Samsung’s flagship devices. The Galaxy S25 series, launched in early 2025, arrived with solid Gemini integration, including side-button access that replaces Bixby in some tasks. 

Samsung wants AI to feel native, not optional. The aim is to make Gemini a default layer across the Galaxy ecosystem, not just a chatbot buried in an app.

This comes as competition in AI is growing. Google’s Gemini 3, released in November 2025, set new performance records, becoming the first model to cross the 1500 Elo threshold on reasoning benchmarks. 

It also led in maths, coding, multimodal tasks and long-context understanding. The response was quick. OpenAI launched GPT-5.2 weeks later, following reports that Sam Altman had declared an internal “code red” to enhance development.

Samsung believes consumer adoption is meeting up with the technology. Roh said internal surveys show awareness of its Galaxy AI brand has jumped from about 30% to 80% in just one year.

“Even though the AI technology might seem a bit doubtful right now, within six months to a year, these technologies will become more widespread,” he said.

On phones, search is the most used AI feature. But usage is spreading to image editing, productivity tools, translation and summaries. These are small actions, repeated daily, and that is where Samsung thinks loyalty will be built.

Still, the aggressive AI rollout is happening against a tougher market backdrop. A global shortage of memory chips is lifting prices for key components, helping Samsung’s semiconductor unit but squeezing margins in its smartphone business.

“As this situation is unprecedented, no company is immune to its impact,” Roh said.

He acknowledged that price increases may be unavoidable, calling some impact “inevitable”, even as Samsung works with partners to soften the blow over the longer term. 

Counterpoint Research revised its 2026 smartphone shipment forecast in December, predicting a 2.1% decline as higher DRAM prices increase device costs. Analysts estimate memory price hikes have added between 10% and 25% to the bill of materials across devices.

Samsung is also managing expectations around foldable phones, a category it pioneered in 2019. Growth has been slower than hoped, held back by engineering challenges and a lack of apps designed for foldable screens. 

Roh believes the format will break through within two to three years, noting that repeat purchase rates among foldable users are “very high”.

For now, Samsung is firmly in control. It held about 64% of the global foldable smartphone market in the third quarter of 2025, far ahead of Huawei and Motorola.

Apple is expected to launch its first foldable iPhone in 2026, increasing the stakes in a segment Samsung once had to itself.

Interbrand releases its list of “Best Global Brands” each year.

For this year’s list, Samsung recorded a brand value of $90.5 billion, upholding its position as the only Asian company to remain in the global top five since 2020.

According to Interbrand, Samsung Electronics’ evaluation was positively influenced by:

• Strengthened AI competitiveness across the company’s business divisions
• Enhanced customer experiences through unified integration across products
• Focused investment in AI-related semiconductors
• Execution of a customer-centric brand strategy

“Through AI innovation and open collaboration, Samsung has worked to ensure that more customers can experience AI in their daily lives,” said Won-Jin Lee, president and Head of Global Marketing Office at Samsung Electronics. “Moving forward, we will continue to focus on benefits for customers including in health and safety so that Samsung can grow into an even more beloved brand.”

Under the vision of “Innovation for All,” Samsung consistently strives to make AI accessible to more customers worldwide.

This year, Samsung reinforced its leadership in mobile AI with the continued advancement of Galaxy AI, aiming to make it available on 400 million devices within the year driving the democratization of AI.

In Consumer Electronics (CE), Samsung has expanded AI competitiveness by introducing AI technologies tailored to each product category, such as Vision AI and Bespoke AI.

Through open collaboration with diverse partners, Samsung has enhanced personalized AI experiences for customers, while also providing industry-leading security with Samsung Knox.

Beyond AI, Samsung continues to enhance the accessibility of its products and services and drive sustainable innovation across all business divisions. This includes energy savings through energy-efficient appliances connected via SmartThings.

Samsung’s Recognized Efforts in Each Business Division

Mobile

• Leading the mobile AI era and driving the popularization of AI with Galaxy AI
• Strengthening foldable category leadership with the launch of Galaxy Z Fold7 and Z Flip7
• Enhancing customer trust through strengthened privacy and security technologies
• Expanding health services through advanced wearables, Samsung Health enhancements, and open collaboration

Visual Display

• Solidifying global leadership in TVs, soundbars, and gaming monitors
• Innovating viewing with rich AI features based on Vision AI
• Enhancing The Frame and Art Store services to deliver personalized art TV experiences
• Expanding content offerings through partnerships in TV Plus, entertainment, gaming, and music

Digital Appliances

• Maintaining global leadership in categories such as refrigerators and washing machines through consistent product innovation and advanced AI capabilities
• Providing differentiated convenience and advanced AI experiences through SmartThings integration
• Expanding Bespoke AI appliance leadership across energy efficiency, usability, performance, and design

Interbrand’s Best Global Brands are ranked based on brand value evaluation, which involves a comprehensive analysis of the company’s financial performance and outlook, the influence of the brand on customer purchases, and brand competitiveness (including strategy, empathy, differentiation, customer engagement, consistency, trust, and more).

The ranking is one of the world’s longest-standing brand value evaluations, widely recognized for its credibility.

The project is still in its early stages, but insiders say the device is designed to be compact, context-aware, and powered directly by OpenAI’s advanced language models.

With this, OpenAI is stepping away from software-only products into the competitive consumer hardware market. Unlike smartphones or computers that add AI as a feature, the goal here is to create an “AI-native” product, a device built from the ground up to work seamlessly with artificial intelligence.

OpenAI’s focus on hardware began earlier this year when it acquired io Products, a startup founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive, in a deal valued at $6.5 billion. 

Ive’s influence is expected to enhance the product’s minimalist design, intuitive controls, and seamless integration with AI systems. More than two dozen former Apple engineers, many from teams behind the Apple Watch and AirPods, are also involved in the project.

Luxshare, which currently assembles iPhones, AirPods and Apple Watches, brings large-scale production and supply chain expertise to the table. OpenAI has also held talks with Goertek, another Apple partner, to supply speaker modules and related components. 

Such collaboration suggests the device may rely heavily on high-quality audio interaction, possibly without a screen.

Analysts argue that this strategy could challenge the place of established companies like Apple, Samsung, and Google. A dedicated AI device could change user habits away from app-based digital assistants on phones, opening the door to entirely new categories of personal technology.

Comparable projects are already in motion elsewhere: Humane’s AI Pin, Rabbit’s pocket-sized R1, and Meta’s AI-powered Ray-Ban glasses are all chasing the same vision — frictionless, ambient computing experiences. 

But OpenAI’s integration of its own models, paired with manufacturing giants like Luxshare, could give it an edge in reaching the mass market.

For now, neither OpenAI nor Luxshare has issued public statements about the device or its release timeline. 

In Nigeria, Victor Opara will spearhead the efforts while in South Africa, Emmanuel Khumalo will take the lead, Techeconomy can report.

The groundbreaking technologies convert radio frequencies (RF) into usable electricity. While the system has been demonstrated to produce more output than was input – through the harvesting of radio frequency present in the environment, the new extended collaboration with the University of Kashmir aims to increase testing, documentation and development of marketable solutions.

The INFRGY technologies represent a significant leap forward, offering an innovative solution for powering devices and charging batteries without the need for physical connections.

A Paradigm Shift in Wireless Power Transfer In the late 19th century, Nikola Tesla’s experiments showed that energy could be transmitted wirelessly using a radio transmitter and receiver. However, his vision of a wirelessly powered world was cut short due to technological limitations.

INFRGY’s innovation builds upon Tesla’s pioneering work, making it a reality with modern RF technology.

While methods using lasers, microwaves, and infrared lights are being developed for wireless energy transmission, they often come with significant limitations. Many of these systems require a direct line of sight between transmitter and receiver, and are limited to point-to-point energy transmission, which hinders their practicality for everyday use.

The INFRGY system, however, sidesteps these constraints by using benign RF technology to offer a more versatile, efficient, and safe method of wireless power delivery.

The RF technology is not adversely affected by obstacles, does not require physical contact, and can power multiple devices simultaneously.

Parvez Rishi, co-founder of INFRGY, expresses his optimism about the potential impact of the technology.

“Radio frequency is already deeply embedded in our lives through its various applications – radio, TV broadcasts, cellular networks, and more”, he said.

Expanding its use to wireless power transfer feels like a natural progression. The technology is scalable, efficient, and offers a way to power devices without the need for precise alignment or physical contact.

A New Frontier for Consumer Electronics

The potential applications of INFRGY’s wireless power transfer system are vast. Everyday electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and wearable technology could be charged without ever having to plug them in, or position them on a charging pad. This breakthrough could also have implications for powering IoT (Internet of Things) devices, smart homes, and even industrial equipment.

Former Hawaii Governor John Waihee, who serves as an INFRGY advisor, feels that the innovations will advance the application of wireless energy technology.

He states: We hope to continue to develop this technology which bridge the fields of wireless charging and renewable energy harvesting.