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Samsung replaces its smartphone chief

As Samsung tries to reclaim its dominance in smartphones, there's a shake-up at the very top.

Samsung Mobile's top execs held on for a while during the company's troubled time with smartphones, but it's apparently been long enough. JK Shin, in addition to another co-CEO, (Samsung's exec lineup is a... multi-layered one), will withdraw from daily operations, replaced by DJ Koh, a mobile exec who previously oversaw Samsung's barely-nascent Tizen mobile OS and Samsung Pay -- neither of which are international success stories (yet?). At the same time, Samsung's head of TVs and home appliances, BK Yoon, is being moved on to focus on "long-term strategy".

According to the WSJ, both Yoon and Shin will retain their titles as co-CEOs of Samsung Electronics. The mobile head was responsible for misreading demand for the company's top flagship phones, not making enough of its curved Galaxy S6 Edge smartphones -- and making too many of the more conservative S6. The mobile profit hit the Electronics arm enough for it to announce an earnings loss for the entire year.