Samsung India Begins Layoffs Across TV And Appliance Units As Rising Costs Bite

Samsung's India operations have begun trimming their workforce across the television and home appliance divisions, with around 80 to 100 executives asked to leave in the initial round of cuts, according to a report citing people familiar with the matter.

The job losses span multiple levels of the organisation, touching director-level officials, team leads at the company's headquarters, as well as branch and area managers across the country. Some of the affected staff were reportedly informed of their exit in small batches over the past several days, with a number of them let go without having to serve out their standard notice periods.

Why Samsung Is Cutting Jobs

The layoffs come at a time when Samsung's consumer electronics business in India is under considerable margin pressure. Memory chip prices have more than doubled over recent months, sharply raising input costs for televisions, refrigerators, washing machines and other appliances. At the same time, demand for smartphones and consumer electronics in the country has softened, compounding the squeeze on profitability.

Industry watchers have also pointed to a broader, global tightening in memory chip supply as a factor weighing on electronics makers more widely, with some analysts cautioning that constrained chip availability could persist for the next few years, adding further uncertainty to cost planning for manufacturers like Samsung.

Scale Of The Cuts Could Grow

While the layoffs currently underway are concentrated in the television and home appliance businesses, the overall number of affected employees may rise further. Reports suggest that as much as a quarter of the sales and marketing workforce attached to Samsung's electronics business in India could eventually be impacted, a category that also includes off-roll staff hired through third-party manpower agencies.

Samsung's domestic electronics sales team is estimated to number between 550 and 600 executives, a figure that excludes the company's much larger smartphone sales organisation, which has not been affected by the current round of cuts. As part of the restructuring, the company is also said to be consolidating some of its branch offices to reduce overheads.

Employees who have been let go are reportedly being offered three months' salary as severance, along with an additional month's pay for every year of service completed at the company.

Smartphones Remain Samsung's Core Business

Samsung's smartphone division, which accounts for roughly three-quarters of the company's revenue in India, has so far been spared from the layoffs. That said, the segment has not been immune to broader headwinds either, with industry estimates suggesting India smartphone sales have declined by around 11 to 12 per cent year-on-year. A turnaround in phone sales could go a long way in shoring up Samsung's overall financial performance in the country.

The company has also found it difficult to meaningfully expand its footprint in India's premium air conditioner segment this year, despite renewed efforts to do so, adding another layer of pressure on its consumer electronics operations.

Despite the current cost pressures, Samsung India's overall financial performance has remained healthy on a full-year basis, with the company reporting revenue of about ₹1.1 lakh crore in the last financial year, an increase of roughly 12 per cent, and a sharp rise in net profit. The layoffs illustrate how even a strong top-line performance is not shielding individual business units from the effects of a global chip cost spike and a softer consumer electronics demand environment.

This is an original summary based on public reporting. See our editorial policy for how we source, write, and correct our stories.