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Samsung

Samsung Group is one of the largest South Korean business groupings. It started as an exports company in 1938 but soon diversified. The Samsung Group, a former conglomerate ("chaebol"), employs well over 400,000 employees worldwide and manufactures cars, electronics, chemicals, aircraft, ships, merchant trade, runs hotels, amusement parks, constructs skyscrapers, textiles, food, etc in separate companies after the Asian financial crisis reorganization. Suwon, South Korea, is also sometimes colloquially called "Samsung City".

Samsung Electronics, founded in 1969, is the largest member of the Samsung Group, and one of the largest electronics companies in the world. Founded in Daegu, South Korea, it operates in around 58 countries and has over 208,000 workers. The turnover in 2003 was about 101.7 billion USD. Samsung Electronics is recognized as being one of the top 10 brands in the world. SEC is now one of only 4 companies in Asia including Japan with a market capitalization of US USD 100 Bln. Samsung (meaning "three stars" or "tristar" in Korean) was founded by Lee Byungchul.

History

1950s - 1980s
1953: Samsung started sugar production, which has since ended
1958: Samsung starts offering insurance
1965: A department store opened in Kwanjou.
1965: Samsung started the Joong-Ang Ilbo daily newspaper. Today this newspaper has no affiliation with the company.
1969: Samsung Electronics founded
1974: Samsung Petrochemical and Heavy Industries founded.
1976: The company was awarded an export prize by the government as a part of the country's development programme.
1977: As a result of their export prize, Samsung Construction emerged. In addition, Samsung Shipbuilding has formed.
1982: Samsung established a professional baseball team.
1983: Samsung produced its first computer chip: a 64k DRAM.
Towards the end of the 1980's, Samsung pushed its efforts in petrochemicals and electronics.

The 1990s and present

The 1990s saw Samsung rise as an international corporation. Not only did it acquire a number of businesses abroad, but also began leading the way in certain electronic components. Samsung's construction branch was awarded the contract to build one of the two Petronas Towers in Malaysia in September 1993 and the Burj Dubai in 2004, set to be tallest structure ever created by mankind.

Samsung survived the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 relatively unharmed compared to other major Korean firms, however, Samsung Motor Co, a USD 5 billion venture was sold to Renault at a staggering loss. Most importantly, Samsung Electronics (SEC) was officially spun-off the Samsung Group and had become to dominate the group, Korea, and the worldwide semiconductor business, even surpassing worldwide leader Intel in investment for the 2005 fiscal year. Samsung's brand strength has improved impressively in the last few years, despite an environment of scandal and political intrigue.

Considered a strong competitor and a benchmark by Japan, Silicon Valley, Taiwan, and domestically, Samsung Electronics (SEC) expanded production dramatically to become the world's largest manufacturer of DRAM, refrigerators, flash memory, dvd-combo players, and aims to double sales and become the top manufacturer of 20 products globally by 2010. It is now one of the world's leading manufacturers in plasma displays and next generation mobile phones. Samsung has even managed to gain prominence in Japan, the home of Sony and Panasonic. Due to their involvement in many fields, Samsung is involved in seemingly never-ending legal controversies, such as the one over patent infringements with companies such as Fujitsu who claim to have created plasma display technology first. Samsung has also faced controversy in Korea for its policies towards workers, described by some as anti-worker, although such claims are widely disputed.

Samsung Electronics saw record profits and revenue in 2004, and in 2005, overtook Sony as one of the worlds most valuable brands, and is now ranked #20 in the world. In 2005, JVC joined HANA, the High Definition Audio-Video Network Alliance to help establish standards in consumer electronics interoperability.

On November 30, 2005 Samsung pleaded guily to a charge it participated in a worldwide DRAM price fixing conspiracy during 1999-2002 that damaged competition and raised PC prices. In a deal with prosecutors, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and its U.S. subsidiary, Samsung Semiconductor Inc., are to pay USD 300 million fine. As a result of this investigation, Hynix was to pay USD 185 mln in 2005, Infineon: USD 160 mln in 2004. Micron Technology, the US firm who initiated the case, cooperated with prosecutors and no fine is expected. Recently, a severely weakened Micron has teamed up with Intel to take on Samsung in the lucrative NAND flash business, although Intel has no desire to fully engage Samsung after Samsung drove Intel out of the flash business.

Mobiles from Samsung