SEOUL, March 19 (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics ( SSNLF )

said on Wednesday it is looking to drive growth as

it faced tough questions from shareholders after its failure to

ride an artificial intelligence boom made it one of the

worst-performing tech stocks last year.

The South Korean firm has been suffering from weak

earnings and sagging share prices in recent quarters after

falling behind rivals in advanced memory chips and contract chip

manufacturing, which have enjoyed strong demand from AI

projects.

"I have never been to a Samsung AGM since I became its

shareholder in 2000, but I wanted to see what executives have to

say (this time) and what they will do," a 65-year old

shareholder who only gave his family name, Lee, told Reuters

ahead of the meeting.

"They should go all-in on the memory chip business,

where they can excel, or do something about the foundry," he

said.

In internal meetings, Samsung has acknowledged it has lost

ground. This is particularly true in semiconductors, where it

lags SK Hynix ( HXSCF ) in high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips

that Nvidia ( NVDA ) and others rely on for AI graphic

processing units.

"Our technological edge has been compromised across all our

businesses," said a transcript of a message from Chairman Jay Y.

Lee given to an internal executive seminar that was seen by

Reuters. "It's hard to see that efforts are being made to drive

big innovation or tackle new challenges. There are only efforts

to maintain a status quo rather than shaking things up."

Samsung co-CEO Han Jong-hee told investors on Wednesday

that 2025 would be a difficult year because of uncertainties

surrounding economic policies in major economies and that

Samsung would pursue "meaningful" mergers and acquisitions and

try to produce tangible achievements.

Shares in Samsung tumbled by nearly a third last year while

those of SK Hynix ( HXSCF ) climbed 26%. In recent years, Samsung has also

lost market share to TSMC in contract chip

manufacturing and to Apple ( AAPL ) and Chinese rivals in

smartphones.

Samsung launched a share buyback plan worth 10 trillion won

($7.2 billion) in November after its stock plunged to more than

four-year lows. Its shares have gained 7% since then.

Samsung is South Korea's most valuable company, with its

market capitalisation of $235 billion accounting for 16% of the

total value of the country's main bourse. Nearly 40% of

investors in South Korean stocks own Samsung shares, according

to market data.