Samsung’s Head Beats Apple’s Cook with $5.8 million Paycheck
On Monday, in lieu of a new disclosure regulation, J.K. Shin, head of Samsung Electronic Co's mobile business, disclosed his 2013 paycheck amounting to $5.8 million, Reuters reports. The disclosure beats the paycheck of Apple Inc.'s Chief Executive Tim Cook reportedly $4.25 million.
Samsung disclosed that Mr Shin's compensation is inclusive of a base salary of 1.17 billion won (or $1.09 million) and 1.6 billion won altogether with incentives and performance bonus.
According to Reuters, Mr Cook was paid $4.25 million for 2013 and $4.17 million for 2012. However, Reuters noted that Mr Cook received an additional pay obtained from annual stock grants, while Mr Shin did not.
Mr Shin had been instrumental in developing Samsung's mobile business since 2009. He spearheaded the launch of Galaxy handsets that had since then fought Apple bottleneck in the market. However, patent lawsuits ensued one after another against Samsung as it had always been accused of copying the "idea" of Apple Inc.'s flagship mobile, the iPhone.
Kwon Oh-hyun, Samsung's co-executive spearheading the manufacturing business, is being paid 6.77 billion won, third co-CEO Yoon Boo-keun, leading the consumer electronics business, is being paid 5.09 billion won.
Financial agencies in South Korea where Samsung's business is based came up with new regulations in 2013. The regulation required companies to include in its annual financial reports the remuneration of executives who are receiving payment of more than 500 million won.
Inasmuch as this new regulation entails transparency, critics are keen to observe that owners of multinational businesses are exempt, especially when they hold non-executive positions.
In fact, Samsung remain mum on compensation received by J.Y. Lee, non-executive vice chairman and son of chairman Lee Kun-Hee. Mr Kun-Hee also assumed the position of non-executive chairman and isreportedly receiving no salary from Samsung.
Meanwhile, Samsung and Apple are involved in another tech patent court battle in San Jose courtroom. Apple Inc. is suing Samsung Electronics for $2 billion damages for its phones and tablets which Apple claimed violated its mobile software patents.
Samsung, in a counter claim, said it was Apple Inc. which violated two of its patents.
Google was being drag in court since some of the software patents claimed by Apple Inc belongs to Google's Android.
If Apple Inc. will cry victory for this lawsuit against Samsung, Google has to change its Android features too, and Samsung will altogether must modify its mobile software.