Samsung
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This article is about the conglomerate company. For the publicly traded company, see Samsung Electronics.
Not to be confused with Samsun, Samson, Sanson, or Sampson (disambiguation).
Samsung
삼성
三星
Samsung Logo.svg
Samsung headquarters.jpg
Samsung Headquarters the "Samsung Town" in Seoul
Native name
삼성
Type
Public[citation needed]
Industry Conglomerate
Founded 1938; 78 years ago
Founder Lee Byung-chul
Headquarters Samsung Town, Seocho-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Coordinates 37.496609°N 127.026902°ECoordinates: 37.496609°N 127.026902°E
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Lee Kun-hee
(Chairman of Samsung Electronics)
Lee Jae-yong
(Vice chairman of Samsung Electronics)
Products Apparel, chemicals, consumer electronics, electronic components, medical equipment, semiconductors, ships, telecommunications equipment
Services Advertising, construction, entertainment, financial services, hospitality, information and communications technology, medical and health care services, retail, shipbuilding
Revenue Decrease US$ 305 billion (2014)[1]
Net income
Decrease US$ 22.1 billion (2014)[1]
Total assets Increase US$ 529.5 billion (2014)[1]
Total equity Increase US$ 231.2 billion (2014)[1]
Number of employees
489,000 (2014)[1]
Subsidiaries [citation needed]Samsung Electronics
Samsung C&T Corporation
Samsung Heavy Industries
Samsung SDS
Samsung Life Insurance
Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance
Cheil Worldwide
Slogan Imagine the Possibilities
Website samsung.com
Samsung
Hangul 삼성
Hanja 三星
Revised Romanization Samseong
McCune–Reischauer Samsŏng
This article contains Korean text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Hangul and hanja.
Economy of South Korea
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Five-Year Plans Saemaul Undong Heavy-Chemical Industry Drive Miracle on the Han River 1997 financial crisis
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Regional
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v t e
Samsung (Hangul: 삼성; hanja: 三星; Korean pronunciation: [sʰamsʰʌŋ]) is a South Korean multinational conglomerate company[citation needed] headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul. It comprises numerous subsidiaries[citation needed] and affiliated businesses, most of them united under the Samsung brand, and is the largest South Korean chaebol (business conglomerate).
Samsung was founded by Lee Byung-chul in 1938 as a trading company. Over the next three decades, the group diversified into areas including food processing, textiles, insurance, securities and retail. Samsung entered the electronics industry in the late 1960s and the construction and shipbuilding industries in the mid-1970s; these areas would drive its subsequent growth. Following Lee's death in 1987, Samsung was separated into four business groups – Samsung Group, Shinsegae Group, CJ Group and Hansol Group. Since 1990s, Samsung has increasingly globalized its activities and electronics, particularly mobile phones and semiconductors, have become its most important source of income.
Notable Samsung industrial subsidiaries[citation needed] include Samsung Electronics (the world's largest information technology company measured by 2012 revenues, and 4th in market value),[2] Samsung Heavy Industries (the world's 2nd-largest shipbuilder measured by 2010 revenues),[3] and Samsung Engineering and Samsung C&T (respectively the world's 13th and 36th-largest construction companies).[4] Other notable subsidiaries include Samsung Life Insurance (the world's 14th-largest life insurance company),[5] Samsung Everland (operator of Everland Resort, the oldest theme park in South Korea)[6] and Cheil Worldwide (the world's 15th-largest advertising agency measured by 2012 revenues).[7][8]
Samsung has a powerful influence on South Korea's economic development, politics, media and culture and has been a major driving force behind the "Miracle on the Han River".[9][10] Its affiliate companies produce around a fifth of South Korea's total exports.[11] Samsung's revenue was equal to 17% of South Korea's $1,082 billion GDP.[12]
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 History
2.1 1938 to 1970
2.2 1970 to 1990
2.3 1990 to 2000
2.4 2000 to 2015
3 Acquisitions and attempted acquisitions
4 Sold parts
4.1 Samsung Techwin
4.2 Samsung Thales
4.3 Samsung General Chemicals
4.4 Samsung Total
5 Operations
5.1 Subsidiaries and affiliates
5.2 Joint ventures
5.3 Partially owned companies
6 Major clients
7 Logo
7.1 Audio logo
8 Samsung Medical Center
9 Sponsorships
10 Litigation and regulatory issues
10.1 Financial scandals
10.2 Antitrust concerns
10.3 Viral marketing
10.4 Labor abuses
10.5 Price fixing
11 References
12 External links
Etymology
According to Samsung's founder, the meaning of the Korean hanja word Samsung (三星) is "tri-star" or "three stars". The word "three" represents something "big, numerous and powerful".[13] The Korean concept derives from the Chinese deities Sanxing.
History
1938 to 1970
The headquarters of Sanghoes in Daegu in the late 1930s
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 (삼성상회, 三星商會). Samsung started out as a small trading company with forty employees located in Su-dong (now Ingyo-dong).[14] 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 an industry 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.[15]
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.[16][17]
In the late 1960s, Samsung Group entered into 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
The SPC-1000, introduced in 1982, was Samsung's first personal computer (Korean market only) and used an audio cassette tape to load and save data – the floppy drive was optional[18]
In 1980, Samsung acquired the Gumi-based Hanguk Jeonja Tongsin and entered the telecommunications hardware industry. 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.[19] 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.[20] 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.[21] 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".[21]
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 billion 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.[22][23]
1990 to 2000
