In 1938, Lee Byung-Chul of a large landowning family in Uiryeong county moved to nearby Daegu city and founded Samsung Sanghoe. Samsung started as a small trading company with forty employees located in Su dong. It dealt in dried fish, locally-grown groceries, and noodles. The company prospered, and Lee moved its head office to Seoul in 1947. When the Korean War broke out, he was forced to leave Seoul. He started a sugar refinery in Busan named Cheil Jedang. In 1954, Lee founded Cheil Mojik and built the plant in Chimsan-dong, Daegu. It was the largest woolen mill ever in the country.
Samsung diversified into many different areas. Lee sought to establish Samsung as a leader in a wide range of industries. Samsung moved into lines of business such as insurance, securities, and retail.
In 1947, Cho Hong-Jai, the Hyosung group’s founder, jointly invested in a new company called Samsung Mulsan Gongsa, or the Samsung Trading Corporation, with the Samsung’s founder Lee Byung chull. The trading firm grew to become the present-day Samsung C&T Corporation. After a few years, Cho and Lee separated due to differences in management style. Cho wanted a 30 equity share. Samsung Group was separated into Samsung Group and Hyosung Group, Hankook Tire, and other businesses.
In the late 1960s, Samsung Group entered the electronics industry. It formed several electronics-related divisions, such as Samsung Electronics Devices, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Samsung Corning, and Samsung Semiconductor & Telecommunications, and made the facility in Suwon. Its first product was a black-and-white television set.
In 1980, Samsung acquired the Gumi-based Hanguk Jeonja Tongsin and entered telecommunications hardware. Its early products were switchboards. The facility was developed into telephone and fax manufacturing systems and became the center of Samsung’s mobile phone manufacturing. They have produced over 800 million mobile phones to date. The company grouped them under Samsung Electronics in the 1980s.
After Lee, the founder’s death in 1987, Samsung Group was separated into four business groups—Samsung Group, Shinsegae Group, CJ Group, Hansol Group, and the JoongAng Group. Shinsegae was originally part of Samsung Group, separated in the 1990s from the Samsung Group, CJ Group, Hansol Group, and the JoongAng Group. Today these separated groups are independent, and they are not part of or connected to the Samsung Group.
In the 1980s, Samsung Electronics began to invest heavily in research and development, which were pivotal in pushing the company to the forefront of the global electronics industry.
Samsung started to rise as an international corporation in the 1990s. Samsung’s construction branch was awarded contracts to build one of the two Petronas Towers in Malaysia, Taipei 101 in Taiwan, and the Burj Khalifa in the 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 world’s largest producer of memory chips in 1992 and is the world’s second-largest chipmaker after Intel. 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. In 2006, S-LCD was established as a joint venture between Samsung and Sony to provide a stable supply of LCD panels for both manufacturers. S-LCD was owned by Samsung and Sony and operated its factories and facilities in Tanjung, South Korea. As of 26 December 2011, it was announced that Samsung had acquired the stake of Sony in this joint venture.
In 2000, Samsung opened a development center in Warsaw, Poland. Its work began with set-top-box technology before moving into digital TV and smartphones. The smartphone platform was developed with partners, officially launched with the original Samsung Solstice line of devices and other derivatives in 2008, later developed into the Samsung Galaxy line of devices, including Notes, Edge, and other products.
In 2010, Samsung announced a ten-year growth strategy centered around five businesses. One of these businesses was to be focused on biopharmaceuticals.
In the first quarter of 2012, Samsung Electronics became the world’s largest mobile phone maker by unit sales, overtaking Nokia, the market leader since 1998.
In 2018, Samsung launched the world’s largest mobile manufacturing facility in Noida, India.