SamsungElectronics has played a key role in the group's corporate governance due to cross ownership.[5] Samsung Electronics has assembly plants and sales networks in 74 countries and employs more than 270,000 people.[6] It is majority-owned by foreign investors.[7][8] As of 2019,[update] Samsung Electronics is the world's second-largest technology company by revenue, and its market capitalization stood at US$520.65 billion, the 12th largest in the world.[9]
Samsung is the world's largest manufacturer of smartphones since 2011. Samsung is best known for its Samsung Galaxy brand including the Samsung Galaxy S series which was first produced in 2010. It has developed 5G-capable smartphones, including the Galaxy S24,[10] and foldable phones, including the Galaxy Z Fold 5.[11] The company is a major vendor of tablet computers, particularly its Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Tab collection, and is regarded for developing the phablet market with the Samsung Galaxy Note family of devices.[12] Samsung has also been the world's largest television manufacturer since 2006 as well as the world's largest soundbar brand.[13][14]
The company is a major manufacturer of electronic components such as lithium-ion batteries, semiconductors, image sensors, camera modules, and displays for clients such as Apple, Sony, HTC, and Nokia.[15][16] It is also the world's largest semiconductor memory manufacturer[17] and from 2017 to 2018, was the largest semiconductor company in the world, briefly dethroning Intel, the decades-long champion.[18]
In 2012, Kwon Oh-hyun was appointed the company's CEO. He announced in October 2017 that he would resign in March 2018, citing an "unprecedented crisis".[19][20][21] The company had three CEOs (Ki Nam Kim, Hyun Suk Kim, and Dong-Jin Koh) from March 2018[22][23] until December 2021, when the business units were reorganized and they were replaced by Kyung Kye-Hyun and Han Jong-hee.[24][25] It has also had a separate regional CEO, HC Hong, who led the business in Southwest Asia since 2015 and then moved to Latin America in 2020.[26][27][28]
Samsung Electric Industries was established as an industrial part of Samsung Group on 13 January 1969 in Suwon, South Korea.[29] At the time, Samsung Group was known to the South Korean public as a trading company specialized in fertilizers and sweeteners. Despite the lack of technology and resources, falling shorter even than the domestic competitors, Samsung Group improved its footing in the manufacturing industry by cooperating with the Japanese companies, a decision that led to a significant amount of anti-Japanese public outcry and huge backlashes from the competitors fearing the outright subordination of the industry by the Japanese. The strategy was able to take off only after the government and Samsung declared that the company would exclusively focus on exports. Toshio Iue, the founder of Sanyo, played a role as an advisor to Lee Byung-chul, Samsung's founder, who was a novice in the electronics business. In December of the same year, Samsung Electric established a joint venture named Samsung-Sanyo Electric with Sanyo and Sumitomo Corporation. This is the direct predecessor of today's Samsung Electronics.[30]
The joint venture's early products were electronic and electrical appliances including televisions, calculators, refrigerators, air conditioners, and washing machines. In 1970, Samsung established the joint venture Samsung-NEC with Japan's NEC Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation to manufacture home appliances and audiovisual devices. Samsung-NEC later became Samsung SDI, the group's display and battery business unit. In 1973, Samsung and Sanyo created Samsung-Sanyo Parts, the predecessor of Samsung Electro-Mechanics. By 1981, Samsung Electric had manufactured over 10 million black-and-white televisions.
In 1974, Samsung Group expanded into the semiconductor business by acquiring Korea Semiconductor, which was on the verge of bankruptcy while building one of the first chip-making facilities in the country at the time. Soon after, Korea Telecommunications, an electronic switching system producer and a Samsung Group company, took over the semiconductor business and became Samsung Semiconductor & Communications.[31]
In February 1983, Lee, along with the board of the Samsung industry and corporation agreement and help by sponsoring the event, made an announcement later dubbed the "Tokyo declaration", in which he declared that Samsung intended to become a dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) vendor. One year later, Samsung announced that it had successfully developed a 64 kb DRAM, reducing the technological gap between the companies from first-world countries and the young electronics maker from more than a decade to approximately four years. In the process, Samsung used technologies imported from Micron Technology of the U.S for the development of DRAM and Sharp Corporation of Japan for its SRAM and ROM.[32] In 1988, Samsung Electric Industries merged with Samsung Semiconductor & Communications to form Samsung Electronics,[33] as before that, they had not been one company and had not been a leading corporation together, but they were not rivals, as they had been in talks for a time until they finally merged.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, Samsung sold personal computers under the Leading Technology brand. However, the equipment was manufactured by Samsung, and the FCC filings from this period typically refer to Samsung products.[34]
In 1988, Samsung Electronics launched its first mobile phone in the South Korean market.[35] Sales were initially poor, and by the early 1990s, Motorola held a market share of over 60 percent in the country's mobile phone market compared to just 10 percent for Samsung.[35] Samsung's mobile phone division also struggled with poor quality and inferior[clarification needed] products until the mid-1990s, and exit from the sector was a frequent topic of discussion within the company.[36]
Lee Kun-Hee decided that Samsung needed to change its strategy. The company shelved the production of many under-selling product lines and instead pursued a process of designing and manufacturing components and investing in new technologies for other companies. In addition, Samsung outlined a 10-year plan to shrug off its image as a "budget brand" and to challenge Sony as the world's largest consumer electronics manufacturer. It was hoped that, in this way, Samsung would gain an understanding of how products are made and give a technological lead sometime in the future. This patient vertical integration strategy of manufacturing components has borne fruit for Samsung in the late 2000s.[37]
A complementary brand leadership strategy was also initiated by chairman Lee when he declared 1996 to be the "Year of Design Revolution" at Samsung. His objective was to build Samsung design capabilities as a competitive asset and transform the company into a global brand-design leader. However, this effort required major changes in corporate culture, processes, and systems. By integrating a comprehensive design management system and strategy into the corporate culture, Samsung was successful in developing an award-winning product design portfolio by the late 1990s, resulting in significant brand equity growth.[38][39][40]
As a chaebol, Samsung Group wielded wealth that allowed the company to invest and develop new technology rather than build products at a level that would not have a detrimental impact on Samsung's finances.[42]
Samsung had a number of technological breakthroughs, particularly in the field of memory which are commonplace in most electrical products today. This includes the world's first 64 MB DRAM in 1992, 256 MB DRAM in 1994, and 1 GB DRAM in 1996.[43] In 2004, Samsung developed the world's first 8 GB NAND flash memory chip, and a manufacturing deal was struck with Apple in 2005. A deal to supply Apple with memory chips was sealed in 2005, and Samsung remains a key supplier of Apple components as of October 2013, manufacturing the A7 processors inside the iPhone 5S model.[44][45]
From 2000 to 2003, Samsung posted net earnings higher than five-percent; this was at a time when 16 out of the 30 top South Korean companies ceased operating in the wake of the unprecedented crisis.[46][47]
In 2007, Samsung Electronics became the world's second-largest smartphone manufacturer, overtaking Motorola for the first time.[49] In 2009, Samsung achieved total revenues of US$117.4 billion, overtaking Hewlett-Packard to become the world's largest technology company measured by sales.[50]
In 2009 and 2010, the US and EU fined the company, along with eight other memory chip manufacturers, for its part in a price-fixing scheme that occurred between 1999 and 2002. Other companies fined included Infineon Technologies, Elpida Memory, and Micron Technology.[51][52][53][54][55] In December 2010, the EU granted immunity to Samsung Electronics for acting as an informant during the investigation (LG Display, AU Optronics, Chimei InnoLux, Chunghwa Picture Tubes, and HannStar Display were implicated as a result of the company's intelligence).[56][57]
Despite its consistent expansion, Samsung, along with its chairman Lee Kun-hee, has developed a reputation for insecurity regarding its financial stability and the potential for future crises to arise. After returning from a temporary retirement period in March 2010, Kun-hee stated that "Samsung Electronics' future is not guaranteed because most of our flagship products will be obsolete in 10 years from now."[58]
The company has set an ambitious goal of reaching $400 billion in annual revenues within ten years. The company has 24 research-and-development centers around the world, and since the early 2000s and in Vision 2020, Samsung has emphasized technical research and development.
In April 2011, Samsung Electronics sold its HDD commercial operations to Seagate Technology for approximately US$1.4 billion. The payment was composed of 45.2 million Seagate shares (9.6 percent of shares), worth US$687.5 million, and a cash sum for the remainder.[59]
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