Samsung Group (Hangul: ; hanja: ; Korean pronunciation: [sams up], stylized

as SMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Samsung

Town, Seoul. It comprises numerous subsidiaries 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 the 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 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]
Samsung Techwin (an aerospace, surveillance and defense company) 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]

In 2013, Samsung began construction on building the world's largest mobile phone factory in the
Thai Nguyen province ofVietnam.
[13]

Contents
[hide]
1 Name
2 History
o 2.1 1938 to 1970
o 2.2 1970 to 1990
o 2.3 1990 to 2000
o 2.4 2000 to 2014
o 2.5 Acquisitions and attempted acquisitions
3 Operations
o 3.1 Subsidiaries and affiliates
o 3.2 Joint ventures
o 3.3 Partially owned companies
4 Major customers
5 Logo
o 5.1 Audio logo
6 Samsung Medical Center
7 Sponsorships
8 Controversies
o 8.1 Financial scandals
o 8.2 Antitrust concerns
o 8.3 Viral marketing
9 References
10 External links
Name[edit]
According to the founder of Samsung Group, the meaning of the Korean hanja word Samsung ()
is "tristar" or "three stars". The word "three" represents something "big, numerous and powerful"; the
"stars" mean eternity.
[14]

History[edit]
1938 to 1970[edit]


The headquarters of Samsung Sanghoes in Daegu in the late 1930s
In 1938, Lee Byung-chull (19101987) of a large landowning family in the Uiryeong county came to
the nearby Daegu city and founded Samsung Sanghoe (, ), a small trading
company with forty employees located in Su-dong (now Ingyo-dong).
[15]
It dealt in groceries
produced in and around the city and produced its own noodles. The company prospered and Lee
moved its head office to Seoul in 1947. When the Korean War broke out, however, he was forced to
leave Seoul and started a sugar refinery in Busan named Cheil Jedang. After the war, in 1954, Lee
founded Cheil Mojik and built the plant in Chimsan-dong, Daegu. It was the largest woolen mill ever
in the country and the company took on the aspect of a major company.
Samsung diversified into many areas and Lee sought to help establish Samsung as an industry
leader in a wide range of enterprises, moving into businesses such as insurance, securities, and
retail. President Park Chung Hee placed great importance on industrialization, and focused his
economic development strategy on a handful of large domestic conglomerates, protecting them from
competition and assisting them financially.
[16]

In 1947, Cho Hong-jai (the Hyosung groups founder) jointly invested in a new company called
Samsung Mulsan Gongsa (), or the Samsung Trading Corporation, with the Samsung
Group founder Lee Byung-chull. The trading firm grew to become the present-day Samsung C&T
Corporation. But after some years Cho and Lee separated due to differences in management
between them. He wanted to get up to a 30% group share. After settlement, Samsung Group was
separated into Samsung Group and Hyosung Group,Hankook Tire, and others.
[17][18]

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[edit]


The SPC-1000, introduced in 1982, was Samsung's first personal computer (Korean market only) and uses an
audio cassette tape to load and save data the floppy drive was optional
[19]

In 1980, Samsung acquired the Gumi-based Hanguk Jeonja Tongsin and entered the
telecommunications hardware industry. Its early products were switchboards. The facility were
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.
[20]
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.
[21]
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.
[22]
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".
[22]

In the 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.
[23][24]

1990 to 2000[edit]
Samsung started to rise as an international corporation in the 1990s. Samsung's construction
branch was awarded a contract to build one of the two Petronas Towers in Malaysia,Taipei
101 in Taiwan and the Burj Khalifa in United Arab Emirates.
[25]
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 largest producer of memory chips in the world in 1992, and is the world's
second-largest chipmaker after Intel (see Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Market Share Ranking
Year by Year).
[26]
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 26
December 2011 it was announced that Samsung had acquired the stake of Sony in this joint
venture.
[27]

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.
[28]

2000 to 2014[edit]


The Samsung pavilion at Expo 2012.
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.
[29]

In 2001 Samsung Techwin became the sole supplier of a combustor module for the Rolls-
Royce Trent 900 used by the Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger airliner.
[30]
Samsung
Techwin is also a revenue-sharing participant in the Boeing's 787 DreamlinerGEnx engine
program.
[31]



The prominent Samsung sign in Times Square, New York City.
In 2010, Samsung announced a ten-year growth strategy centered around five businesses.
[32]
One
of these businesses was to be focused on biopharmaceuticals, to which the company has
committed 2.1 trillion.
[33]

In December 2011, Samsung Electronics sold its hard disk drive (HDD) business to Seagate.
[34]

In the 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.
[35][36]
In the August 21
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.
[37]
The conversion
should start in early 2013 with production on line by the end of 2013. On March 14, 2013, Samsung
unveiled the Galaxy S4.
On 24 August 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.
[38]
Samsung decried the decision saying that the move could harm
innovation in the sector.
[39]
It also followed a South Korean ruling stating that both companies were
guilty of infringing on each other's intellectual property.
[40]
In the first trading after the ruling,
Samsung shares on the Kospi index fell 7.7%, the largest fall since October 24, 2008, to
1,177,000 Korean won.
[41]
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
[42]
which has been denied by the
court.
[43]

On 4 September 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.
[44]

In 2013, a New Zealand news outlet reported a number of Samsung washing machines
spontaneously catching on fire.
[45]
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.
[46]

On May 22, 2014, Samsung announced Samsung Music will be shutting down on July 1st, 2014.
This spells the disappearance of Samsung Music Hub.
[47]

Acquisitions and attempted acquisitions[edit]