Samsung Group on Tuesday appointed a new head for its flagship mobile business, amid rising competition from low-end smartphone makers and Apple. Koh Dong-jin, who was previously in charge of the mobile research and development, was promoted to head Samsung Electronics' Mobile Communications Business.

The new head of Samsung?s phone business helped develop its mobile payment and security platforms - Samsung Pay and Knox.

Shin Jong-kyun, meanwhile, will remain as the head of the IT & Mobile Communications Division, but hand over his title as the head of the mobile business and instead "focus on the long-term business strategy," according to Samsung.

In the third quarter, Samsung's handset shipments climbed 18 percent on-quarter to 105 million units in the third quarter, with smartphones accounting for around 80 percent, or 84 million units.

Despite the increase, however, the rising challenges from Chinese players and the portion of budget models in its portfolio led Samsung's IT & Mobile Communications Division to post an operating profit of 2.4 trillion won (US$2 billion), slightly lower than the previous quarter's 2.7 trillion won.

New Galaxy S7 to bring few changes

In related , Samsung reportedly plans to make a "little overhaul" to its upcoming Galaxy smartphone as it wants to keep making the device more and more competitive while saving costs.

"The venue for unveiling new Galaxy smartphone, tentatively named the Galaxy S7, is still undecided. Though Samsung has so far been preferred to hold its own unpacked event for new products, the S7 will get a little change," a source told The Korea Times, Tuesday.

"As the S6 and S6 Edge represented progress, the S7 will have improvements both in picture quality, performance and other some new features. But because smartphones have already been commoditized, you don't need to spend more on a surface overhaul," another source said.

Based on that perspective, the overall surface design for the S7 will be similar to S6 or Note 5, though it will be much more powerful, speedier and brighter thanks to the use of the latest processors, new DRAMs with expanded storage, and OLED displays.