SAMSUNG
History
In 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 (삼성상회), 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 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.
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 afterIntel (see Worldwide Top 20
Semiconductor Market Share Ranking Year by Year). 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 majoraerospace 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
Samsung Techwin has
been the sole supplier of a combustor module of the Trent 900 engine of the Rolls-Royce Airbus A380-The largest
passenger airliner in the world- since 2001. Samsung Techwin of Korea is 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 onbiopharmaceuticals, to which the
Company has committed ₩2.1 trillion.
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 onsmartphone 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 bar 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.
On September 4,
2012, Samsung announced 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.
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