According to Forbes statistics, Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong is currently the wealthiest person in South Korea, with a net worth of 34 billion USD, an increase of 12,4 billion USD since the end of March.
His two younger sisters, Lee Boo-jin and Lee Seo-hyun, hold the second and third wealthiest positions in the country, with net assets of 12,4 billion USD and 12 billion USD respectively.
Lee Boo-jin currently serves as Chairwoman and CEO of Hotel Shilla, a leading hotel and convention center in Seoul. Lee Seo-hyun holds the role of Chairwoman for strategic planning at Samsung C&T, which is effectively the parent company of Samsung.
Meanwhile, Hong Ra-hee, mother of the three siblings and wife of the late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, holds assets valued at 11,2 billion USD. She previously managed the Samsung Museum of Art Leeum and the Ho-Am Museum before stepping down in 2017.
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Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong at an event in Gyeongju, South Korea on 31/10/2025. Photo: AFP |
The majority of the Lee family's wealth stems from their stake in Samsung Electronics, whose stock price has increased five times over the past year. Last week, Samsung Electronics' market capitalization surpassed the 1 trillion USD mark, making it the second Asian company to join the trillion-dollar club, after TSMC.
Samsung is currently the world's largest producer of memory chips for artificial intelligence (AI) by sales. Samsung's high bandwidth memory (HBM) line is utilized in AI chips from Nvidia, AMD, and Alphabet.
Demand for Samsung's mainstream memory chip lines has also increased significantly. For instance, NAND flash, a type of chip used for storage in solid-state drives (SSDs), is being deployed in data centers.
Last month, Samsung Electronics announced record Quarter I business results, driven by its chip segment. Revenue increased 69% compared to the same period in 2025, reaching 133,9 trillion won (89,96 billion USD), and operating profit surged 756% to 57,2 trillion won (38,44 billion USD).
"Driven by the boom in memory chip prices, we expect the next quarter to surpass Quarter I, and 2026 to be Samsung's best year ever," stated Jeongku Choi, a research analyst at Counterpoint Research.
Analysts at Barclays bank also forecast that Samsung's HBM revenue could triple this year, as the supply-demand imbalance in the memory chip market shows no signs of cooling down in the short term, especially with continued booming demand from AI data centers.
Samsung was founded in 1938 by Chairman Lee Jae-yong's grandfather, Lee Byung-chull. It began as a trading company before evolving into a diversified empire spanning food, textiles, and electronics.
Phien An (according to Forbes, CNBC)
