Samsung Group

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• 1963: The first Shinsegae department store opens in Seoul
• 1964: Samsung starts Tongyang Broadcasting Company (TBC), which later merged with KBS
• 1965: Samsung starts the Joong-Ang Ilbo daily newspaper, which is no longer affiliated with the company
• 1969: Samsung Electronics was founded
• 1974: Samsung Petrochemical and Heavy Industries were founded
• 1976: The company was awarded an export prize by the government as a part of the country's development program
• 1977: As a result of this export prize, Samsung Construction emerged. In addition, Samsung Shipbuilding is formed
• 1982: Samsung establishes a professional baseball team
• 1983: Samsung produces its first computer chip: a 64k DRAM chip

Lee Byung-Chul founded Samsung in 1938. It started as a small trading company with forty employees, located in Seoul. The company did fairly well until the Communist invasion in 1950 which caused great damage to his inventories. He was forced to leave and start over in Suwon in 1951. In just a year, the company’s assets had grown twentyfold. In 1953, Lee created a sugar refinery—the South Korea’s first manufacturing facility after the Korean War. “The company prospered under Lee’s philosophy of making Samsung the leader in each industry he entered” (Samsung Electronics). The company started moving into service businesses such as insurance, securities, and department store. In the early 1970s, Lee borrowed money from foreign companies to begin the mass communication industry by launching a radio and television station (Samsung Electronics).

South Korean President Park Chung-hee’s regime during the 1960s and 1970s, helped Samsung Electronics and many other Korean firms. Park put great importance in increasing economic growth and development, and assisted large, profitable companies, protecting them from competition and aiding financially as well. His government banned several exterior companies selling consumer electronics in South Korea. “To make up for a lack of technological expertise in South Korea, the South Korean government effectively required foreign telecommunications equipment manufacturers to hand over advanced semiconductor technology in return for access to the Korean market” (Samsung Electronics). This enormously helped Samsung to manufacture the first Korean dynamic random access memory chips.

Samsung Group later formed several electronics-related divisions, such as Samsung Electron Devices Co., Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co., Samsung Corning Co., and Samsung Semiconductor & Telecommunications Co., and grouped them together under Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. in 1980s. Its first product was a black-and-white television set (Samsung Electronics).

In the \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 LCDs, contacted Samsung to cooperate. 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 is owned by Samsung and Sony 51% to 49% respectively and operates its factories and facilities in Tangjung, South Korea.

Considered a strong competitor by its rivals, Samsung Electronics expanded production dramatically to become the world's largest manufacturer of DRAM chips, flash memory, optical storage drives and it 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 of liquid crystal displays and next generation mobile phones.

Samsung has also tried hard to improve its international image. It has spent more than $6 billion since 1998 on marketing, sponsoring the last five Olympics and erected a large video sign in Times Square in 2002 (Lee kun-hee). Samsung is very involved in the Asian Games, contributing Samsung Nations Cup Riding Competition, Samsung Running Festival, Samsung World Championship, and still many more around the globe. (Samsung Electronics).

Samsung Electronics, which saw record profits and revenue in 2004 and 2005, overtook Sony as one of the world's most popular consumer electronics brands, and is now ranked #20 in the world overall.

By late 2005, Samsung had a net worth of US$77.6 billion.

Markets

Samsung Techwin is a leading manufacturer of digital cameras.^[1]

Samsung is the world's largest producer of DRAM, SRAM and Flash Memory.^[2]

Samsung is a leading manufacturer of computers such as the Q1 Ultra Mobile PC.

Samsung is the world's largest manufacturer of LCD displays.

Samsung Renault is one of the largest manufacturers of vehicles such as luxury cars in South Korea.

Samsung is the world's largest manufacturer of laser printers.^[3]

Currently, Samsung has sixteen products that have dominated the world’s market share, including: DRAM, color cathode-ray tube TVs (CPT, CDT), SRAM, TFT-LCD glass substrates, TFT-LCD, STN-LCD, tuner, CDMA handset, color television (CTV), monitor, flash memory, LCD Driver IC (LDI), PDP module, PCB for handheld (mobile phone plates), Flame Retardant ABS, and Dimethyl Formamide (DMF).^[4]

Plus in the Television market, Samsung and LG make the only screens for LCD TFT televisions and then later sell them on to the other companies.

According to Interbrand and BusinessWeek, Samsung’s brand value ranked 43rd (USD 5.2billion) in 2000, 42nd (USD 6.4 billion) in 2001, 34th (USD 8.3 billion) in 2002, 25th (USD 10.8 billion) in 2003, 21st (USD 12.5 billion) in 2004, and 20th (14.9 billion) in 2005 among top global companies.

In terms of export that directly contributes to the Korean economy, Samsung took up 18.1% of the all exports with USD 31.2 billion in 2000 and 20.7% with USD 52.7 billion in 2004. In addition, Samsung's tax payments to the Korean government in 2003 was KRW 6.5 trillion, which is about 6.3% of total tax revenue.

The market value of Samsung in 1997 reached KRW 7.3 trillion in 1997, which amounted to 10.3% of the Korean market but this figure increased to KRW 90.8 trillion taking up 22.4% in 2004.

Moreover, the annual net profit of Samsung marked KRW 5.8 trillion in 2001, KRW 11.7 trillion in 2002, KRW 7.4 trillion in 2003, and KRW 15.7 trillion in 2004, showing forth a steady increase.

In order to enhance the working environment and build a strong and trustworthy foundation, the semiconductor sector of Samsung Electronics has been conducting a ‘Great Workplace Program’ called GWP since 1998. Then, in 2003, GWP has spread throughout the entire Samsung Group as Samsung Fire and Marine Insurance, Samsung SDI, Samsung Everland, Samsung Corporation, Cheil Industries, Samsung Networks, and others started to apply its core principles. In 2006, 9 subsidiary companies of Samsung Electronics, 80 overseas branches, and 130 overseas business