Overall Samsung as company:
According to Samsung's founder, the meaning of the Korean hanja word Samsung is "tri-star" or "three stars". The word "three" represents something "big, numerous and powerful"Notable Samsung industrial subsidiaries include Samsung Electronics (the world's largest information technology company measured by 2012 revenues, and 4th in market value),Samsung Heavy Industries (the world's 2nd-largest shipbuilder measured by 2010 revenues),and Samsung Engineering and Samsung C&T (respectively the world's 13th and 36th-largest construction companies).Other notable subsidiaries include Samsung Life Insurance (the world's 14th-largest life insurance company), Samsung Everland (operator of Everland Resort, the oldest theme park in South Korea) and Cheil Worldwide (the world's 15th-largest advertising agency measured by 2012 revenues)
1938 to 1970:
In 1938, Lee Byung-chull (1910–1987) of a large landowning family in the Uiryeong county moved to nearby Daegu city and founded
Samsung Sanghoe. Samsung started out as a small trading company with forty employees located in Su-dong (now Ingyo-dong).
It dealt in locally-grown groceries and made noodles. The company
prospered and Lee moved its head office to Seoul in 1947. When the Korean War broke out, he was forced to leave Seoul. He started a sugar refinery in Busan named
Cheil Jedang. In 1954, Lee founded
Cheil Mojik and built the plant in Chimsan-dong, Daegu. It was the largest woollen mill ever in the country.
Samsung diversified into many different areas. Lee sought to
establish Samsung as leader in a wide range of industries. Samsung moved
into lines of business such as insurance, securities and retail.
President Park Chung Hee
placed great importance on industrialization. He focused his economic
development strategy on a handful of large domestic conglomerates,
protecting them from competition and assisting them financially.
In 1947, Cho Hong-jai, the Hyosung group's founder, jointly invested
in a new company called Samsung Mulsan Gongsa, or the Samsung Trading
Corporation, with the Samsung's founder Lee Byung-chull. The trading
firm grew to become the present-day Samsung C&T Corporation.
After a few years, Cho and Lee separated due to differences in
management style. Cho wanted a 30 equity share. Samsung Group was
separated into Samsung Group and Hyosung Group, Hankook Tire and other businesses
.
In the late 1960s, Samsung Group entered the electronics industry. It
formed several electronics-related divisions, such as Samsung
Electronics Devices, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Samsung Corning and
Samsung Semiconductor & Telecommunications, and made the facility in
Suwon. Its first product was a black-and-white television set.
1970 to 1990
In 1980, Samsung acquired the Gumi-based
Hanguk Jeonja Tongsin
and entered telecommunications hardware. Its early products were
switchboards. The facility was developed into the telephone and fax
manufacturing systems and became the center of Samsung's mobile phone
manufacturing. They have produced over 800 million mobile phones to
date.The company grouped them together under Samsung Electronics in the 1980s.
After Lee, the founder's death in 1987, Samsung Group was separated into four business groups—Samsung Group, Shinsegae Group, CJ Group and the Hansol Group.Shinsegae (discount store, department store) was originally part of
Samsung Group, separated in the 1990s from the Samsung Group along with
CJ Group (Food/Chemicals/Entertainment/logistics), and the Hansol Group
(Paper/Telecom). Today these separated groups are independent and they
are not part of or connected to the Samsung Group.One Hansol Group representative said, "Only people ignorant of the laws
governing the business world could believe something so absurd",
adding, "When Hansol separated from the Samsung Group in 1991, it
severed all payment guarantees and share-holding ties with Samsung
affiliates." One Hansol Group source asserted, "Hansol, Shinsegae, and
CJ have been under independent management since their respective
separations from the Samsung Group". One Shinsegae department store
executive director said, "Shinsegae has no payment guarantees associated
with the Samsung Group".
In 1980s, Samsung Electronics began to invest heavily in research and
development, investments that were pivotal in pushing the company to
the forefront of the global electronics industry. In 1982, it built a
television assembly plant in Portugal; in 1984, a plant in New York; in
1985, a plant in Tokyo; in 1987, a facility in England; and another
facility in Austin, Texas, in 1996. As of 2012, Samsung has invested more than US$13,000,000,000
in the Austin facility, which operates under the name Samsung Austin
Semiconductor. This makes the Austin location the largest foreign
investment in Texas and one of the largest single foreign investments in the United States
1990 to 2000
Samsung started to rise as an international corporation in the 1990s. Samsung's construction branch was awarded contracts to build one of the two Petronas Towers in Malaysia, Taipei 101 in Taiwan and the Burj Khalifa in United Arab Emirates.In 1993, Lee Kun-hee
sold off ten of Samsung Group's subsidiaries, downsized the company,
and merged other operations to concentrate on three industries:
electronics, engineering and chemicals. In 1996, the Samsung Group
reacquired the Sungkyunkwan University foundation.
Samsung became the world's largest producer of memory chips in 1992 and is the world's second-largest chipmaker after Intel (see Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Market Share Ranking Year by Year).In 1995, it created its first liquid-crystal display screen. Ten years later, Samsung grew to be the world's largest manufacturer of liquid-crystal display panels. Sony, which had not invested in large-size TFT-LCDs, contacted Samsung to cooperate, and, in 2006, S-LCD
was established as a joint venture between Samsung and Sony in order to
provide a stable supply of LCD panels for both manufacturers. S-LCD
was owned by Samsung (50% plus one share) and Sony (50% minus one
share) and operates its factories and facilities in Tangjung, South
Korea. As of December 26, 2011, it was announced that Samsung had
acquired the stake of Sony in this joint venture.
Compared to other major Korean companies, Samsung survived the 1997 Asian financial crisis relatively unharmed. However, Samsung Motor was sold to Renault at a significant loss. As of 2010, Renault Samsung is 80.1 percent owned by Renault and 19.9 percent owned by Samsung. Additionally, Samsung manufactured a range of aircraft
from the 1980s to 1990s. The company was founded in 1999 as Korea
Aerospace Industries (KAI), the result of merger between then three
domestic major aerospace
divisions of Samsung Aerospace, Daewoo Heavy Industries and Hyundai
Space and Aircraft Company. However, Samsung still manufactures aircraft engines and gas turbines.
2000 to 2015
In 2000, Samsung opened a computer programming laboratory in Warsaw, Poland.
Its work began with set-top-box technology before moving into digital
TV and smartphones. As of 2011, the Warsaw base is Samsung's most
important R&D center in Europe, forecast to be recruiting 400 new-hires per year by the end of 2013.
In 2010, Samsung announced a ten-year growth strategy centered around five businesses.One of these businesses was to be focused on biopharmaceuticals, to which the company has committed ₩2,100,000,000,000.
In December 2011, Samsung Electronics sold its hard disk drive business to Seagate.
In first quarter of 2012, Samsung Electronics became the world's largest mobile phone maker by unit sales, overtaking Nokia, which had been the market leader since 1998.On 21 August's edition of the
Austin American-Statesman,
Samsung confirmed plans to spend 3 to 4 billion dollars converting half
of its Austin chip manufacturing plant to a more profitable chip.The conversion should start in early 2013 with production on line by the end of 2013. On 14 March 2013, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S4.
On August 24, 2012, nine American jurors ruled that Samsung had to pay Apple $1.05 billion in damages for violating six of its patents on smartphone
technology. The award was still less than the $2.5 billion requested by
Apple. The decision also ruled that Apple did not violate five Samsung
patents cited in the case.Samsung decried the decision saying that the move could harm innovation in the sector.It also followed a South Korean ruling stating that both companies were
guilty of infringing on each other's intellectual property.In first trading after the ruling, Samsung shares on the Kospi index fell 7.7%, the largest fall since 24 October 2008, to 1,177,000 Korean won.Apple then sought to ban the sales of eight Samsung phones (Galaxy S
4G, Galaxy S2 AT&T, Galaxy S2 Skyrocket, Galaxy S2 T-Mobile, Galaxy
S2 Epic 4G, Galaxy S Showcase, Droid Charge and Galaxy Prevail) in the
United States
which has been denied by the court.
On September 4, 2012, Samsung announced that it plans to examine all
of its Chinese suppliers for possible violations of labor policies. The
company said it will carry out audits of 250 Chinese companies that are
its exclusive suppliers to see if children under the age of 16 are being
used in their factories.
In 2013, a New Zealand news outlet reported a number of Samsung washing machines spontaneously catching on fire.The corporation is expected to spend $14 billion on advertising and
marketing in 2013, with publicity appearing in TV and cinema ads, on
billboards and at sports and arts events. In November 2013, the
corporation was valued at $227 billion.
In May 2014, Samsung announced it will be shutting down its streaming
service on 1 July 2014, also meaning the end of the Samsung Music Hub
app that typically comes installed on its Android phones.
On September 3, 2014, Samsung announced Gear VR, a virtual reality device in collaboration with Oculus VR and developed for the Galaxy Note 4.
In October 2014, Samsung announced a $14.7 billion investment to
build a chip plant in South Korea. Construction will begin next year
with production beginning in 2017. The company has not yet decided the
type of chips to be produced.
In October 2014, Samsung also announced it would invest 633 billion
South Korean won ($560 million USD) in the construction of a new 700,000
square metre production complex in Vietnam.
Samsung plans to launch a new set of services beginning early 2015.
The goal of this new suite of business offerings, dubbed Samsung 360
Services, is to become a help desk of sorts for businesses IT
departments. The customizable services range from technical support to
security solutions for having a Samsung employee embedded in a client's
business as an on-site support manager or technology consultant.
On December 2, 2014, Samsung announced it will sell Fiber Optics to U.S. speciality glass manufacturer Corning Inc.Samsung Electronics Inc. is expanding in Silicon Valley with a $300
million facility in San Jose, California. The 10-story complex will
include 1.1 million square feet of floor space, a clean room for
semiconductors and a "fitness center in the sky". The facility will be
split between semiconductor research and development and other sales and
marketing functions. It will serve as the North America headquarters
for semiconductor operations.In 2015, Samsung has been granted more U.S. patents than any other
company - including IBM, Google, Sony, Microsoft and Apple. The company
received 7,679 utility patents through Dec. 11.
2016
In January 2016, Samsung announced it will be working with Microsoft
to develop IoT devices based on Windows 10, where the companies will
work together to develop products that will run on the platform, as well
as integrate with other companies developing hardware and services on
Microsoft's OS.Samsung released a fitness smartwatch called the Gear Fit 2 and a brand of wireless earbuds called Gear Icon X.
As per the last month reports released by IDC, Samsung shipped 73.2
million units of smartphone and accounted for 21.7 percent of global
smartphone market. However, this share of Samsung during second quarter
of 2015 has declined from whopping 24.8 percent on the same quarter in
2014. Nevertheless,
Samsung continues to outshine Apple in smartphone market.
Samsung is a South Korean multinational conglomerate company
headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul. Towards the end of 20
th
century, Samsung increased its global activities and emerged as a global
giant particularly in electronics, mobile phones and semiconductors.
Did you know that Samsung Electronics is world’s largest producer of
memory chips ever since 1993.
Signing off with a promise to bring out a video on Samsung history so stay stuned and stay sharp(another tech gaint with new tech coming up).
Anubhav Dixit
