Samsung is much larger than most people realise.
When you hear about that name you instantly think about cellphones, specificly, the Samsung Galaxy. It's probably the case for most people reading this, and actually, many of you own or owned one of them.
They have been selling hundreds of millions of them every year, more than any other company in the world.
Now to help me prove that Samsung is bigger than you know, i'm going to talk about Samsung in the rest of this article without mentioning the thing for which they are most known. Simply put, that was the last time you'll hear the word "SmartPhone".
Introduction:
Samsung Electronics has been consistently ranked by Fortune list as one of the largest companies in the world. Their sales have been around 200 Billion USD each year, wich sounds crazy.
They are from South Korea, and for the entire country's GDP is near 1.6 Trillion USD, meaning that this one company accounts for 1/8th of that. And if that wasn't crazy enough for you, Samsung Electronics is only one part of a much larger Samsung Group. When combining it all together, they're responsible for as much as 20% of South Korea GDP.
Let me know if there is one, but i'm not aware of any other country where their economy is so reliant on one company.
So let's start from the begining, Samsung goes all the way back to 1938, and actually existed for 30 years before they had anything to do with electronics.
It was started by Lee Byung-Chul, he was 28 years old. The initial Logo Featured 3 stars, because it represented longevity and productivity for the company, and a Fun fact, the name Samsung is Korean for 3 stars.
Their initial business was operating in dry goods that also traded groceries internationnaly, bought noodls, fishs, and vegetables from local growers and producers, then sell them to China. After the Korean War in 1953, Lee Byung-Chul took advantage of the situation and expanded into all of these other industries: First, comodities when he built a sugar refinery, along that was Textiles, when he opened the largest mill in the country, after that it was insurance, Tv station, and departement store. For this 30 years it seems involved in everything except electronics, i mean they were already generating over 100 Million USD before Samsung electronics even existed.
In 1969, Samsung Electronics was created as one of the many parts of the business. And in the early 70s, they put up this black and white Tv as their first product:
Major parts of Samsung:
Samsung group has a lot of subsidiaries, but the most bigger and important ones are:
a- Samsung Electronics:
It is the core of their business, and it contains 4 separate Devisions.
=> Consumer electronics:
They make Tvs, monitors, refrigerators, airconditioners...etc. any stuff that you have in your home that was bought from Samsung probably falls under this segment.
=> IT & Mobile communications:
Which is most known for their Laptops and something i promised not to mention again :).
=> Device Solutions:
Which has to do with memory and displays. Actually, Samsung had made quite a few of the displays and chips that have gone into IPhones over the years, so there you go. Even if you buy an IPhone, Samsung is making money from it.
=> Harman:
It's the newest devision that Samsung had acquired in 2017 for 8 Billions USD. It deals mostly with connected car systems and things like that.
b- Samsung Heavy Industries:
They started shortly after the electronics, in 1974, and beleive it or not, they specialize in making ships, over the last 50 years they built more than 1200 ships (massive ships, carriers, even cruise ships), apart from that, they also make cranes and forklifts.
This is probably a part of Samsung you didn't know about.
c- Samsung Fondation:
This is the non-profit portion of the group, that owns and operates a hospital in Seol, South Korea, called Samsung Medical Center. Along with this, Samsung is also closely tied to a university in Korea as far in funding and Sponsorship.
d- Samsung Constructions & Trading:
To me this is the most unexpected part. It is mainly a construction company that deals with buildings and infrastructurs. They help build bridges, tunnels, power plants all over the world, and even Skyscrapers, in a big way too.
This example will make you go double check, but in 2010, Samsung built the tallest building in the world, and they even built part of the one that took the title after it.
e- Samsung Aerospace (no longer exists):
In the 80s, they manifactured jet engins, helicopters, and later went out to make fighter jets and tanks for the Korean Army. They also had major deals to supply parts to the worlds largest airplan manifacturer (Boeing).
f- Samsung Life Insurance:
Do you still remember when i said they started providing insurance in the 50s, well, that has since evolved into Samsung Life insurance. As the name implies, they provide with life and health insurance, but again in its big way.
This company alone, without the other parts that i mentioned, makes over 30 billions USD a year, and because of that, it consistently ranks on fortune list of the 500 largest companies in the world.
Conclusion
- Groceries
- Sugar
- Textiles
- Insurance
- Tv station
- Departement store
- Televisions
- Semiconductors
- Monitors
- Refrigerators
- Airconditioners
- Laptops
- CPU Chips
- Displays
- Ships
- Connected car systems
- Cranes
- Froklifts
- Medical center
- University
- Bridges
- Tunnels
- Roads
- Powerplants
- Skyscrapers
- Helicopters
- Jets
- Tanks
- And you know the other thing :)