Wednesday, February 26, 2014
SAMSUNG GROUP 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), Samsung
Heavy Industries (the world's
2nd-largest shipbuilder measured by 2010 revenues), and Samsung Engineering and Samsung
C&T (respectively the world's
13th and 36th-largest construction companies). Other notable subsidiaries include Samsung Life Insurance (the world's 14th-largest life
insurance company), Samsung Everland (operator of Everland Resort, the
oldest theme park in South Korea), Samsung Techwin (an aerospace, surveillance and
defense company) and Cheil
Worldwide(the world's 15th-largest advertising agency measured by 2012
revenues).
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". Its affiliate companies produce around
a fifth of South Korea's total exports. Samsung's revenue was equal to 17% of
South Korea's $1,082 billion GDP.
In 2013,
Samsung began construction on building the world's largest mobile phone factory
in the Thai Nguyen province of Vietnam.
According to the founder of
Samsung Group, the meaning of the Korean hanja word Samsung (三星)
is "tristar" or "three stars". The word "three"
represents something "big, numerous and powerful"; the
"stars" mean eternity.
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