SWEET AND SPICE - SAMSUNG by Aneesha Pillai

Is there anybody in this world who has not heard not heard of Samsung? But what most don't know is that the tech giant didn't start from the top. Samsung too, like many other companies had other plans when they first started. 

The Beginning

picture credits: Wikimedia commons

Samsung was founded by Lee Byung-chul in 1938 as a trading company. Then for the next three decades the group made its way into areas including food processing, textiles, insurance, securities, and retail.  Samsung entered the electronics industry a little late in the 1960sSamsung Electronics is the worlds largest information technology company, consumer electronics maker and chipmaker measured by 2017 revenues.  

The meaning of Samsung.

According to Samsung's founder, the meaning of the Korean hanja Samsung is "three stars". The word "three" represents something "big, numerous and powerful , while "stars" means everlasting or eternal, like stars in the sky. 

Samsung 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. 

The first big step in 1988

Samsung launched its first mobile phone in the South Korean Market in 1988. Back then, the only company that had successfully broken into the mobile market was Motorola. Who doesn't remember those black brick phones back in the days. Motorola had almost 60% of shares in the mobile world compared to Samsung's 10%. The company regularly had discussions about quitting

Samsung SGH-100

 the sector completely. The company really struggled with the poor quality and inferior products until the mid-1990s. 

The era where Samsung decided to strategize and actually plan

In 1995, Samsung decided that they needed an actual strategy and they cannot make in this industry by winging it. The company then shelved all the under selling products and instead pursued a process of engineering and manufacturing components for many other companies, along with investing in new technologies. Added to that, Samsung decided to defeat their biggest competitor, Sony; who was then the worlds largest consumer electronics manufacturer; by outlining a 10 year plan to shrug off the image as a " budget brand ".

It was hoped that by doing so, Samsung would gain a better understanding of how products are made and, as a response, gain a technological advantage in this area.

   

In the late 2000s, Samsung's methodical centralization strategy of manufacturing components paid off.

Samsung Blackjack II released in 2007  

Samsung made lots of technological innovations, most notably in the realm of memory, that are now included in virtually every electronic devices. In 1992, the world's first 64MB DRAM was launched, followed by 256MB DRAM in 1994 and 1GB DRAM in 1996. Samsung created the world's first 8GB NAND flash memory chip in2004, and a production agreement with Apple was struck in 2005. A contract to supply Apple has been signed in 2005, and Samsung remains a key supplier of Apple components as of October 2013, manufacturing the A7 processors inside the iPhone 5S model. 

the newfound kings of tech. 

From 2000 to2003, Samsung generated net earnings of some more than 5%, despite the fact that 16 of the top 30 South Korean companies had shut down as a result of the extraordinary crisis. According to Interbrand, Samsung Electronics beat its Japanese rival Sony for the first time in 2005 to become the world's twentieth-largest and most popular consumer brand. 

In April2011, Samsung Electronics sold its HDD commercial production to Seagate Technology for roughly £1.4 billion. The purchase was made up of 45.2 million Seagate shares (9.6 percent of the company's shares), amounted to Us$687.5 million, and a cash sum for the remaining portion.

In May2013, Samsung announced that it had developed and tested speed-enhanced fifth generation (5G) technology. 

The Galaxy S4, Samsung Electronics' new entry into its Galaxy S series smartphone range, was released for retail in April 2013. The S4 was released as an upgrade to the best-selling Galaxy S III, and it was equipped with the company's Exynos processor in some international markets.

2013 saw the growth of the what is now arguably the biggest tech company in the entire world. The release of the Galaxy line proved to be a major success and the Company changed their logo to match their new and a little more sophisticated image.

Samsung Electronics logo,
used from late 1993 until replaced in 2013

current logo of Samsung Electronics and wordmark,
in use since 2013

Sources: 

Images - wikimedia commons