'Surplus Turnaround' Samsung Electronics Semiconductor to Give 12-16% Year-End Bonuses

A 14 Trillion Won Deficit Last Year at 0%
This Year, Performance Improves and Rises

This year, the 'Overperformance Incentive (OPI)' for the Device Solutions (DS) division, which is in charge of Samsung Electronics' semiconductor business, has been set at 12-16%.

According to industry sources on the 27th, Samsung Electronics announced the expected OPI payout rates by business division internally on the same day. The expected OPI payout rate for the DS division is 12-16%.

OPI is a representative performance bonus system of Samsung Electronics, along with the Target Achievement Incentive (TAI), where if the affiliated business division's performance exceeds the goal set at the beginning of the year, up to 50% of the individual's annual salary is paid once a year within the limit of 20% of the excess profit.

The DS division has almost every year received about 50% of the annual salary as a performance bonus, including receiving 50% of the annual salary as OPI for 2022 at the beginning of last year. However, due to the semiconductor downturn last year, the division posted a loss of 14.87 trillion KRW, causing the OPI for 2023, paid at the beginning of the year, to shrink to 0%.

Yonhap News

This year, with the market recovery, performance improvement is expected, so the division has escaped the 'empty envelope' situation. This year, Samsung Electronics' DS division is expected to achieve sales of about 109 trillion KRW and operating profit of about 16 trillion KRW, with the securities industry estimating that the memory business alone will generate operating profit around 20 trillion KRW.

Earlier, Young-Hyun Jeong, Vice Chairman and head of Samsung Electronics DS division, stated on the internal bulletin board in August, "With a profit of 8.4 trillion KRW achieved in the first half, operating profit is expected to improve significantly compared to the 2024 management plan target," adding, "As the semiconductor market recovers and profit margins improve, if all employees work together, the OPI payout rate will be considerably higher than expected."

The exact OPI payout amount is currently being calculated and will be finalized and announced at the payment time in January next year.

Meanwhile, on the 20th, Samsung Electronics DS division announced the second half TAI and also paid a 2 million KRW crisis-overcoming encouragement bonus to all business divisions in celebration of the 50th anniversary of semiconductors. The TAI payout rates for the DS division were set at 200% for the Memory Business Division, 25% for the System LSI and Foundry Business Divisions, and 37.5% for the Semiconductor Research Institute and AI Center, among others.

TAI is a system that pays up to 100% of the monthly base salary differentially once each in the first and second half of the year based on the performance evaluation of the affiliated business division and the business unit.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.