The Samsung Company belongs to South Korea as that is where it was not only founded but the country where it is headquartered as well. The company that we know to so famously for producing excellent phones and other digital media products is part of the Samsung Group. Because of the multinational nature and hundreds of business affiliates including subsidiaries of a conglomerate, the boundaries of where a company actually belongs to often get screwed.

The situation becomes so bad that one time, when one of my friends asked where my Samsung Galaxy came from, mine was directly from South Korea instead of AT&T or a Verizon product, he asked me why I had a fake Samsung when I could have had the real American version. That is how skewed our perceptions about certain digital multinational companies can become especially when they are omnipresent. Samsung has the largest employee base of any company in the world that is not Walmart or a Chinese Petroleum giant. Samsung Corporation alone makes up for 13% of the South Korean GDP.
To better understand where Samsung comes from and its origins, let’s look at a brief road map of the company.

The Origins of Samsung

Like most of the technology giants in the world, Samsung came from humble beginnings with start-up money of just $30 in 1938. Unlike the other tech giants however, Samsung’s first two decades as a company were not even related to digital media or electronics. The company started with selling fruits, fish and vegetables as a trade export company in Taegu, Korea. It wasn’t until 1969 that Samsung started to truly pour its focus into the electronic business with Samsung-Sanyo Electronics as a subsidiary of the Samsung Corporation we now know. The flour-mills and manufacturing plants that Samsung operated with for confectionery and other products eventually became embroidered in the manufacturing process of the electronics division. After that the latter phased out the former business eventually.

Road Map of Samsung

• In the early 1970, Samsung started producing Black and White television sets and within a decade, the company became the largest producer of Black and White television.
  The 80s came with its own set of challenges for Samsung and the company started producing Air Conditioning systems, Microwave ovens and expanded its VCR business to the United States.
• The 80s actually became the defining moment for the current Samsung portfolio with the company starting to produce electronic products other than TVs and Semi-conductors; namely tape recorders, personal computers and telecommunication products became part of the core business of Samsung by the end of 80s.
• Some of the top 90s innovation for Samsung included world’s very first 33” double-screen TV, world’s largest TFT screen and the lightest personal computer weighing in at 105g.
  Until 2010, Samsung’s core business included LCDs, TFT screens and of course the Television division which led the company to claiming the No.1 market share in the world for TVs.
• Samsung Omnia, feature phones and the personal computer business was profitable enough for Samsung but it never proved lucrative enough to threaten the big guns like Apple, Nokia and Microsoft at the time.
• With 2010 came the adaptation of the rival Android technology of Google to Apple’s iOS. With Android’s free market and Samsung’s own innovation spinning a world renowned phone line called the Samsung Galaxy, everything changed for the Samsung conglomerate which shortly afterwards became the largest company in South Korea and the 2nd largest IT company in the world by revenue.