The History of Samsung
The headquarters of Samsung Sanghoe in Daegu in the late 1930s
1938 to 1970In 1938, Lee Byung-chull (1910–1987) of a large landowning family in the Uiryeong county came to the nearby Daegu city and founded Samsung Sanghoe (삼성ìƒíšŒ, 三星商會), a small trading company with forty employees located in Su-dong (now Ingyo-dong). 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 woollen 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. Lee 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.
In 1948, Cho Hong-jai (the Hyosung group’s founder) jointly invested in a new company called Samsung Mulsan Gongsa (삼성물산공사), 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.
In the late 1960s, Samsung Group entered into the electronics industry. It formed several electronics-related divisions, such as Samsung Electronics Devices Co., Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co., Samsung Corning Co., and Samsung Semiconductor & Telecommunications Co., 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 the telecommunications hardware industry. Its early products were switchboards. The facility were developed into the telephone and fax manufacturing systems and became the centre of Samsung's mobile phone manufacturing. They have produced over 800 million mobile phones to date. The company grouped them together under Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. in the 1980s.
After the founder's death in 1987, Samsung Group was separated into four business groups - Samsung Group, Shinsegae Group, CJ Group and 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 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 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 LLC. 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 a contract 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 largest producer of memory chips in the world in 1992, and is the world's second-largest chipmaker after Intel. 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 1 share) and Sony (50% minus 1 share) and operates its factories and facilities in Tangjung, South Korea. As on 26 December 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 present 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. Samsung Techwin is also a revenue-sharing participant in the Boeing's 787 Dreamliner GEnx engine program.
In 2010, Samsung announced a 10-year growth strategy centred around five businesses. One of these businesses was to be focused on biopharmaceuticals, to which the Company has committed â‚©2.1 trillion.
In December 2011, Samsung Electronics sold its hard disk drive (HDD) business to Seagate.
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. In the August 21st 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 August 24, 2012, a U.S jury ruled that Samsung had to pay Apple Incorporated US$1.05 billion dollars in damages for violating its patents on smartphone technology. Samsung decried the decision saying that the move could harm innovation in the sector. It also followed a South Korean ruling that said both companies were guilty of infringing on each other's intellectual property. 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. 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 Judge Koh.
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SamsungPlease delete / lock if posted
