Where is the Samsung company located? Briefly about Samsung: history, achievements, country of origin Samsung

The history of the industrial group Samsung, one of the monsters of the modern global economy, began in 1938, then in the united Korea. An entrepreneurial resident of Daegu town, merchant Byong Chul Li, decided to expand his business and, together with Chinese partners, founded a rice trading company. Things were going well, the company was developing new areas of activity, the staff grew, and in 1948 it was decided to give the enterprise a fashionable "American" name: Samsung Trading Co.

Samsung's start - Daegu store, 1938

Semiconductors are better than rice

A real breakthrough in the history of the company took place in 1969, when it, together with the Japanese company Sanyo, opened a workshop in South Korea for the assembly of black and white Japanese TVs. Already in 1973, a full-fledged large-scale production of various consumer electronics was established in the city of Suwon, and the joint venture was completely taken over by Samsung Trading Co and turned into Samsung Electronics Corporation.

Having started its activity in the consumer electronics market practically from scratch, for several years Samsung Electronics has taken a prominent place on it. By adopting Sanyo technology and then concentrating on semiconductor manufacturing, the corporation has grown over time into one of the largest and most renowned electronics manufacturers in the world.

Today, it is difficult to find an industry that does not involve Samsung units. Literally everything is produced under this brand: from microwaves and toasters to digital cameras and stereos, from cars to ocean ships and airplanes. In the domestic market of South Korea, Samsung Group is also engaged in financial transactions, insurance and security activities, as a result of which it forms more than 50% of the country's total budget. Almost half a million employees work in the corporation's offices around the world, and the South Korean city of Suwon, where the headquarters of Samsung Electronics is located, has long been called "Samsung City".

Lost in translation

There is no unambiguous version about the origin of the word samsung (pronounced "samson"), but the most common version is that in translation from Korean it means "three stars". Perhaps the choice of the name is related to the three sons of the founder of the company, Byong Chul Li, one of whom, Kong Hee Li, is the current leader of the industrial group.

By the way, the early logos of the company featured the image of three stars. But in 1993, Samsung, considering the previous logo to be inconsistent with the image of an international corporation, decided to replace it. It was then that the familiar to us modern emblem saw the light - a dynamically inclined blue ellipse with the name of the company written inside. An excellent design and a large-scale advertising campaign did their job: the logo became one of the most recognizable in the world. Advertising students from leading universities are examining Samsung's logo change as an example of an extremely successful rebranding today.

When developing a new emblem, it was not without oriental philosophy. According to Samsung marketers, "the elliptical shape of the logo symbolizes the global movement in space, expressing the idea of ​​constant renewal and improvement."

Amateur photography

Samsung Electronics business strategists began to think about the fact that entering the market of amateur photographic equipment could bring considerable profit back in the mid-1970s. The result of this thought was the appearance of the first Samsung camera in 1979. The SF-A didn’t have a lot of charisma: it was just a good "soap box" with a flash that anyone could use. But the company did not seek to create a technical masterpiece - main goal was the production of simple cameras for the mass consumer. And the mass consumer responded with interest, since the first Samsung cameras were inexpensive for their class, quite reliable and easy to operate.

The further development of Samsung compact cameras kept pace with the development of photographic technologies: more powerful flashes, motors for rewinding the film, the function of automatic reading of the DX-code, red lights, which were attributed to protection from the "red evil eye", finally, full-fledged autofocus and lenses with variable focal length appeared. distance - zooms. Growing with all these innovations, Samsung products, nevertheless, did not stand out in any way among other cameras, but at the same time, in terms of functionality and quality, they did not lag behind the models - "classmates" of the leading manufacturers in this field.

Developing amateur compacts, Samsung engineers were well aware that getting really high-quality images is impossible without the use of high-end optics. But starting the production of good optical glass from scratch is extremely troublesome, requiring serious financial and intellectual resources. As a result, Samsung chose a different path: in 1995, it entered into a partnership agreement with the legendary German optics manufacturer Schneider-Kreuznach, whose name, printed on the lens barrel, was a guarantee of quality for anyone familiar with photography. Since then, the lenses of all top models of Samsung cameras have appeared with an unpronounceable combination of letters of the German alphabet.

Of course, no one made these lenses in Germany and then screwed them onto Korean cameras. The production of branded "Schneider" optics was established at Samsung factories under license and under the strict control of the German concern. As we know, already in the digital age, the Japanese followed the same path: Panasonic, which entered into an agreement with Leica AG, and Sony Corporation, which widely uses Carl Zeiss optics.

Interestingly, in the late 1990s, Samsung tried to compete with the "top five" (as in those days they called a group of Japanese companies leading manufacturers of photographic equipment: Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Minolta and Pentax) in the segment of SLR cameras, releasing its first DSLR - non-autofocus Samsung SR4000 with Schneider-Kreuznach optics.

The camera turned out to be very good, with thoughtful control and a "grippy" body, and the optical line of Schneider, in addition to the standard fifty-kopeck piece, included three more lenses with a variable focal length. But, despite the obvious advantages, the camera traditionally did not have any striking features, and therefore "wiped out" among the copies of more eminent photographic manufacturers.

In the photo market, Samsung was still perceived only as a manufacturer of amateur compact cameras. So, at the end of the "film era" in Russia, three cameras from the Samsung lineup were sold everywhere. The first, the simplest, is the Fino 40s with a 30mm f / 4.5 fixed lens, flash and automatic film rewinding. The second, more functional, is the Vega 700 with an optical zoom that covers focal lengths from 35 to 70 mm. And the third, the most "sophisticated" - Vega 290W, the main features of which can be considered a universal zoom lens with a focal length of 28–90 mm and the questionable ability for such a camera to control the exposure manually (bulb). Agree, in order to be considered a serious photo producer, this is clearly not enough. But, as we can now see, Samsung was still ahead.

Digital philosophy

“Samsung Electronics sees itself as a leader in the Revolutionary Digital Convergence Era; our task is to translate this vision into reality by turning our company into a digital one - Digital-ε Company ”- this is how the essence of Samsung Electronics philosophy is formulated on the corporation's official website. The company began to implement this philosophy back in the 1990s in all areas of its activity, including the production of photographic equipment.

In 1994, a relatively compact digital camera Samsung SSC-410N was presented to the public. The camera, shaped more like a modern binocular or a small video projector, was equipped with a 1/3-inch CCD-matrix with a resolution of 768 x 484 pixels, a zoom lens with an equivalent focal length of 40-120 mm and a built-in 4 MB memory module. However, this device went into production only in 1997, and a year before that a compact digital camera of a more traditional design appeared in photo shops - Samsung Kenox SSC-350N, which was also produced under the Apple and Fujifilm brands.

A CCD-matrix with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels was responsible for the registration of images in the Kenox SSC-350N, the information was recorded on a removable memory card in SmartMedia format. The rest of the device was quite simple even for its time: a plastic body, a lens with a fixed equivalent focal length of 38 mm, a range of shutter speeds from 1/4 to 1/5000 s, and the only possible sensitivity value was 100 ISO units. But it was one of the first digital cameras costing less than $ 1000, so Samsung can be safely registered as a pioneer in the production of digital photographic equipment - with the only proviso that the Kenox SSC-350N was not a proprietary development of the company.

The lineup of Samsung digital compacts, which could already really claim commercial success, was first presented at the PMA 2002 exhibition. the more functional Digimax 350SE, also equipped with a 3-megapixel sensor, and the 4-megapixel Digimax 410 topping the list.

In October 2004, gadget lovers were happy to learn that Samsung Electronics had released the world's first camera phone with a 5-megapixel matrix, and the next spring, the first Korean phone with a 7-megapixel camera appeared. But with the production of the actual cameras, everything was not so great: they improved, but still remained only one of many. To talk about the Korean corporation as a notable photographic manufacturer, it was necessary to release a bright, truly innovative product. Samsung Electronics specialists started to develop such a product, or rather their series, in 2005.

Chocolate interface

After conducting extensive market research, the Dream Camera development team took three main opinions of potential consumers as a benchmark:
- I don't know anything about photography, but I still want to look professional;
- I like the slim and elegant design;
- the camera is conservative in nature.

In other words, it was necessary to create a series of technically flawless cameras with an outstanding design, which, nevertheless, would leave no one in doubt that you had a camera in your hands.

The eastwardly loyal to their corporation and the westward motivated developers literally settled in their office and became like zombies raving about things that no one understands. More than five hundred sketch ideas were developed, tailored to certain specifications; all of them came out quite bright, but the catchy design alone was not enough: innovative solutions were required in the very principle of camera control.

Remembering this period, the developers admit that they survived only thanks to chocolate, which was then consumed in huge quantities. Once, one of the "office prisoners" was sitting at his desk, staring at a chocolate bar he had started, and suddenly said: "We can make the buttons for navigating the menu look like a bar of chocolate, consisting of nine smaller slices." Everyone took it as a joke, but then they seized on the thought, which at first seemed the product of a completely exhausted imagination. This is how the principle of camera control with the help of touch buttons located along the LCD was born, which is significantly different from the usual four-button joysticks used in most other cameras.

This original, completely new user interface is coupled with a beautiful, memorable design and rich functionality allowed Samsung cameras of the NV (New Vision) series to become one of the brightest novelties of the photo market in 2006.

Almost in the lead

Today Samsung Electronics ranks among the world's largest camera manufacturers. In 2006, the company released the first Samsung GX-1S DSLR under its own name, the result of a partnership agreement with Pentax. Despite the fact that the GX-1S is almost an exact copy of the * ist DS2 from Pentax, its release speaks of the company's intention to win the attention of advanced amateur photographers. This became finally clear after Samsung's debut in the semi-pro segment with the 10-megapixel GX-10 SLR, also a Pentax development. Photo enthusiasts have appreciated these efforts and are increasingly considering Korean cameras with the proprietary blue border as full-fledged and highly competitive devices. This could not but affect the popularity of Samsung compact cameras, presented in four series.

The recently revamped NV series continues to combine high-quality, feature-packed cameras with outstanding design and innovative controls that may seem a little overwhelming at first, though.

The i-series is the smallest and most stylish camera accessory for fashionistas, but not for the photography enthusiast. The versatile L series contains high-quality fully automatic cameras. The S-series combines both the simplest digital compacts, which do not allow much interference in the shooting process, and functional cameras with the ability to enter settings manually.

Overall modern the lineup Samsung compact cameras are extremely versatile. Most cameras, despite their modest size, fit comfortably in the hand due to the presence of a characteristic protrusion. Many models are produced in a classic black version, which cannot but please old-school photographers, and just lovers of the classics or the now fashionable retro style.

And the main thing is that almost all cameras (with the exception, perhaps, of the i series) belong to the case when the memorable design does not prevent the device from being really convenient to operate and sufficiently functional. Samsung compact cameras have finally acquired a distinct personality: today they are difficult to confuse with any others.

Russian spelling according to the norms of practical transcription - "samson") in Korean means "three stars". This name may be related to the three sons of Samsung founder Lee Byung Chol (이병철), whose youngest son Lee Gong Hee (이건희) headed the company until 2008, in violation of all Eastern traditions of inheritance, in accordance with which the eldest son inherits most of the family property.

We use the human and technological resources of the company to create products and services of superior quality, thereby making our contribution to the improvement of the global state of society.

history of the company

Foundation of the company

Thus, 30 large companies were created (chaebols - "money families"). Among them, in addition to Samsung, were Hyundai, Goldstar (LG), etc. Each "money family" had its own direction: Daewoo - car production, Goldstar - household appliances, Samsung - electronics, Hyundai - construction, etc.

Company reform

The merger of Sanyo and Samsung marked the beginning of one of the largest sectors of the Samsung Group - Samsung Electronics. The company managed, albeit with heavy losses, to weather the economic crisis of the 1980s. The price of the crisis is a few non-core divisions, a sharp reduction in the number of subsidiaries... With the coming to the board of Lee Kun-hee, a whole range of reforms was proposed, which implied not only a complete restructuring of the company, but also a change in the very foundations of management: the company had to fully comply with the conditions of the free trade law. The proposals to change the policy towards external investors were supposed to make the company more attractive for subsidies, as the conglomerate lost financial support from the state.

Until the 1980s, the shares of the companies included in the concern were traded only in South Korea, while they were in rather low demand from investors. The reason is traditionally Asian governance based on the principles of Confucianism: only representatives of the Li family were at the head of the government. External investors had no levers to influence decision-making in the management of companies. In addition, traditional management meant life-long employment and career advancement over the years of service.

Marketing changes were introduced, a complete redesign of the company's mission and a change in its symbol. The first two logos of the company featured three red stars. But Samsung's management, considering the former logo inappropriate to the image of an international corporation, decided to replace it. It was then that the modern emblem saw the light - a dynamically inclined blue ellipse with the name of the company written inside. An excellent design and a large-scale advertising campaign did their job: the logo became one of the most recognizable in the world. Advertising students from leading universities are examining Samsung's logo change as an example of an extremely successful rebranding today.

When developing a new emblem, oriental philosophy was not without. According to the company's representatives, "the elliptical shape of the logo symbolizes movement in the world space, expressing the idea of ​​renewal and improvement." These changes continued until the 1990s.

2006 Samsung Group Financial Report:

Growth trends in the group's sales according to the company's annual reports:

General view of the profit distribution structure of the Samsung Group according to the 2006 report:

Samsung Group structure (by distribution of the company's profits from various areas of activity, 2006)

Companies belonging to the Samsung Group concern electronics and microelectronics, the chemical industry, the automotive industry, heavy industry, finance and loans, and insurance. The structure of the concern includes a full cycle of electronics production, from the extraction of resources, their processing and ending with finished products. Most of the conglomerate's divisions perform subordinate functions in relation to companies engaged directly in the manufacture of finished electronic products, and work exclusively for the concern or only within South Korea. This feature is clearly visible from the distribution of profits by divisions, thus, the main income of the concern comes from the electronics industry.

Electronics industry

More than 70% of the group's sales are in the electronics industry.

Companies of this division:

• Samsung Electronics
• Samsung SDI
• Samsung Electro-Mechanics
• Samsung SDS
• Samsung Networks

The company's electronics industry divisions operate around the world, most of the products are exported. The breakdown of Samsung's e-business by region is as follows:

The divisions are engaged in the production of hard disks (HDD), random access memory, LCD monitors, LCD and plasma TVs, mobile phones of GSM, CDMA, 3G standards and with WiMAX support, equipment for IP telephony, laptops, printers, MFPs, household appliances and so on, the development of third and fourth generation wireless telecommunication networks, WiMAX.

Distribution of Samsung electronics industry business by technological areas:

It is worth noting the company's success in the US telecommunications market. In the third quarter of 2008, Samsung managed to take first place in mobile phone sales, ahead of its main competitor Nokia.

According to the statistics of the DisplaySearch research company (Q1 2007), Samsung Electronics occupies a leading position among the leading television brands in the world market, similarly, Samsung remains first in the markets of Western and Eastern Europe and the North American region separately:

One of the most important directions, as already noted, is the creation of LCD panels (monitors) and TV, as evidenced by the ubiquity of production. Plants for the production of Samsung Electronics monitors are located in South Korea (Suwon) (), Hungary (), Malaysia (), Great Britain (1995), Mexico (), China (1998), Brazil (1998), Slovakia (2002), India (2001), Vietnam (2001), Thailand (2001), Spain (2001).

In 2008, a plant for the production of televisions was opened in Russia (Kaluga region), the enterprise is engaged in the assembly of liquid crystal and plasma televisions of small diagonals (up to 42 ") budget series. The plant has a workshop for the production of plastic parts of the product body, but the line is not fully loaded and the main part of the devices is assembled from imported parts (mainly made in China) (November 2008).

The headquarters in the suburbs of Seoul was loaded with the production of displays of the highest quality (of all produced by the concern), and the 6 sigma control system was introduced at this enterprise. Here they develop new models, test them, create the first series of products, and after a successful implementation, they distribute the load on the manufacture of a new product between factories around the world. This standard has been introduced at most of the plants of the concern, for example, it is the corporate strategy for the work of the Samsung SDI division.

Chemical industry

The structure of the chemical industry division includes five enterprises:

• Samsung Total Petrochemicals (global company, joint venture with Total Group)
• Samsung Petrochemicals
• Samsung Fine Chemicals
• Samsung BP Chemicals (international company, joint venture with BP Chemicals)

The industry brings the concern about $ 5 billion a year. Samsung Total Petrochemicals is the largest chemical company in the group and is a joint venture between the Samsung Group and the French energy and chemical company Total Group. The petrochemical complex consists of 15 factories located in Daesan (South Korea), which produce household chemicals, chemicals for general consumption, basic chemicals:

• paraxylene
• LPG, fuel

Heavy industry

In the field of heavy industry, there are two divisions of the concern:

• Samsung Heavy Industries
• Samsung Techwin

The division brings about 10% of the concern's profits, since it operates mainly on the domestic market of South Korea, in addition to this, part of the export goes to the United States and China. -, gas pipelines, tankers. Major projects include the development of the KTX2 multipurpose trainer, the K9 self-propelled howitzer, and the world's largest LPG tanker and container ship Xin Los Angeles.

Building

One company of the concern is engaged in construction:

• Samsung Engineering

The industry brings the concern about $ 2 billion a year. The division builds offices and factories for the Samsung Group around the world, and outsourcing is rare. Among the structures developed and designed by this company, it is worth noting the head office building of Samsung Group in Seoul, the tallest building in the world - Burj Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Twin Towers in Malaysia, Taipei 101 in Taiwan.

Samsung Group headquarters building in Seoul

Tallest building in the world Burj Dubai in the United Arab Emirates

Twin Towers in Malaysia

Taipei 101 in Taiwan

Automotive

One of the non-core divisions of the concern is the automotive industry, one enterprise is employed in this area:

• Samsung Motors (Renault Samsung Motors) - 2000.

Until 2008, the company provided exclusively for the domestic market. In the nearest future the concern plans to enter the market of the Asia-Pacific region (2009). In 2007, the production volume was 179,272 vehicles.

Finance and credit, insurance

Light industry

Samsung Cheil Industries, founded in 1954 as a textile manufactory, has been successfully transformed into a fashion industry leader in the South Korean market, as well as a manufacturer of chemical materials: synthetic resins (ABS, PS) and compounds for the manufacture of semiconductor displays. The company produces fashionable Korean clothing brands such as Bean Pole, Galaxy, Rogatis and LANSMERE.

Marketing and advertising

Entertainment and Leisure Industry

The entertainment and recreation industry is represented in the conglomerate by two companies:

Everland Resort is located in Yongin, a suburb of Seoul. It is the largest entertainment complex in South Korea. The Shilla Hotels & Resorts is a five-star hotel chain working in a strategic alliance with Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces (India). Shilla is ranked among the top ten hotels in the world by various travel agencies.

Samsung activities in Russia

On the Russian market, from the entire Samsung Group, the following divisions of the electronics industry are mainly represented:
1. Samsung Electronics - home appliances (refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, built-in appliances), audio-video devices (LCD and plasma TVs, projection TVs, home theaters, mini- and microsystems), mobile phones, office equipment (monitors, laptops, printers, MFPs).
2. Toshiba-Samsung - hard drives, optical drives
3. SDS - RAM

President of the headquarters for the CIS and Baltic countries, general manager Samsung Electronics Rus - Chiwon Suh (appointed February 2009).

The international analytical agency GfK provides the following statistics on sales of Samsung Electronics in Russia:

According to the research company ITResearch for 2007:

Samsung factory in Russia

Samsung warehouse in Russia

Samsung and Chelsea Football Club

Samsung Electronics has been the title sponsor of Chelsea Football Club since 2005. An official ceremony was held between Samsung Europe President Ying Soo Kim and Football Club Chief Executive Peter Knnh at Stamford Bridge Stadium. So, since 2005, the football club has been playing in blue (white) jerseys with the Samsung Mobile logo on the chest. The five-year contract involves costs of £ 50 million.

The decision to cooperate was made in order to strengthen the position of the company in the field of telecommunication technologies in the European market.

Sponsoring activities in art and literature

Literary Prize named after L. Tolstoy "Yasnaya Polyana"

Samsung Company acted as a co-founder of the Yasnaya Polyana award. The winners of the award are authors whose works awaken the ideals of morality and mercy in their readers. The prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in Russia, designed to support writers, followers of L. Tolstoy's morality and ideals, the ideals of humanistic prose and poetry, which express the centuries-old traditions of Russian culture.

Sponsorship of the Bolshoi Theater

Notes (edit)

1. Traditions East-West (Russian). Retrieved December 1, 2008.
2. Samsung Group Official Site_Company Philosophy
3. Shin Hyun Hwak South Korea: The Hard Road to Prosperity. // Far East problems. - . - № 5.
4. The 100 TOP Brands
5. Official website of Samsung Group_Company symbol (Russian). Retrieved November 18, 2008.
6. KRW / USD (exchange rate at the time of report generation (January 2007): 955.18 / $ 1; KRW / EUR: 1 199.31 / € 1
7. Samsung Group annual 2006 (English). Retrieved November 18, 2008.
8. Alexander Prokhorov Travel to the center of Samsung // "ComputerPress". - 2006. - № 12.
9. News_Bureaucrats (Russian). 2008-11-07. Retrieved December 7, 2008.

Most users wonder which country Samsung is made in. The main highlight of the method, which will be described in detail below, is that any user can check the country of origin of any Android smartphone, not just an Android Samsung smartphone.

Samsung began its first production in India, opening its first plant in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, near New Delhi, in 1997. This state-of-the-art complex is today the home base of the electronics giant. It manufactures mobile phones, refrigerators and LED TVs. The Noida facility is considered a leader among all Samsung subsidiaries in terms of maximum productivity.

To help make its products better and faster in the southern part of the country, Samsung opened a second manufacturing facility in Chennai, Tamil Nadu in November 2007. Today, the Sriperumbudur facility manufactures LED TVs, washing machines, refrigerators and split air conditioners.

Displaying IMEI on the screen

To determine the manufacturer, first we need to figure out how to display the IMEI number of your smartphone. This is a unique identifier for any gadget that cannot be tampered with or faked.

To display these numbers on the screen, you must dial the combination * # 06 #. Next, one or two IMEI numbers will appear in front of you, depending on how many SIM card slots are installed in the smartphone. In addition, the unique serial number of the Samsung smartphone will be displayed.

Also, the IMEI number and serial number can be viewed if your phone model is equipped with a removable battery. To do this, turn off the device, remove the battery, and there will be a sticker with this Samsung data in its compartment.

Which country is the manufacturer of this or that smartphone? This issue is of concern to a large number of users. And not surprising. After all, many may not even know that the country of origin of Samsung may be different. So, it was previously believed that all smartphones of this brand are assembled in China, but this is not true.

What do the IMEI symbols mean

After you have displayed the IMEI information on the screen, you need to figure out what it means. On the smartphone screen, the information will look something like this: Samsung ww70k62108wd ua. The country of origin is not displayed in the open form.

By the way, Samsung's management claims that the quality of their products is consistently high, regardless of which country produces it.

Returning to the decoding of IMEI, the user will be interested in his 7th and 8th characters. It is they that contain information about the country of origin of this particular Galaxy smartphone.

Decoding by country

Below are all the available codes that explain in which country a particular gadget was produced:

• The numbers 05 or 50 indicate that the Galaxy smartphone is manufactured in Brazil or the United States.
• The number 08 or 80 means your Galaxy was made in Germany.
• The numbers 00 indicate that it was made in the country where it was purchased.
• The numbers 01 or 10 mean that the Galaxy is manufactured in Finland.
• Numbers 02 or 20 indicate that it was assembled in the UAE or India.
• The numbers 03 or 30 means your phone is made in China.
• The numbers 04 or 40 also indicate that the gadget is assembled in the Middle Kingdom.
• The numbers 06 or 60 indicate that the Galaxy smartphone was manufactured in Hong Kong, China or Mexico.
• The number 13 indicates that it was produced in Azerbaijan.

Again, the country of origin Samsung does not affect the quality of a particular device. Rather, it is the personal preference of the users. But, according to numerous surveys, it becomes obvious that users still prefer to search for smartphones made in India.

If in the IMEI line in place of the 6th and 7th characters there are numbers not from the list above, then the smartphone was produced in Vietnam at a partner plant. This, alas, is not the best choice, as the device may use some components from a partner plant, not Samsung.

Alternative method

If you do not want to find out the country of origin of Samsung by the IMEI code, then this can be done using a third-party software... For example, you can install the Phone Info Samsung app on your smartphone. It will display information about which country is the manufacturer of Samsung on the home screen.

The named application has a very simple interface. It simply displays all the information it can retrieve from the device. This includes how to find out the country of origin of your Samsung phone. At the top of this list is a General Information section, which contains information about the country of origin of the device, the date of manufacture, and the status of the Knox meter.

Samsung is a group of companies founded in 1938 in South Korea. It is known in the world market as a manufacturer of household appliances, electronics and components. Samsung's businesses include electronics, shipbuilding, finance, chemistry, entertainment, and even aircraft.

Samsung's history began in the early 1930s. Entrepreneur Lee Byung Chol started his own rice flour business, and it is from his first warehouse in Daegu that the company's history begins. With all the difficulties of private enterprise in Korea, which at that time was a Japanese colony, Lee Ben Chol was able by 1938 to establish his own sales channel from Korea to China and Manchuria. The active development of the supply of food products such as rice, sugar and dried fish made it possible to officially register the Samsung Trading Company.

After the Korean War, due to the growth of the Korean economy, the structure of Samsung has changed. The merger of Sanyo and Samsung marked the beginning of one of the largest sectors of the Samsung Group - Samsung Electronics. Approaches in marketing were changed, the mission of the company was revised and its symbol was changed. The first two logos of the company featured three red stars. Samsung executives considered the former logo inappropriate to the image of an international corporation. Then the modern emblem appeared, which is the well-known dynamically inclined blue ellipse with the name written inside.

In 1983, the production of personal computers was opened.

In 1991-1992, the development of the first line of mobile phones was completed.

In 1999, Samsung Electronics was awarded the Forbes Global Consumer Electronics Award.

Today Samsung Group includes many divisions that are responsible for various areas of activity. More than 70% of the group's sales are in electronics. The companies in this division include: Samsung SDI, Samsung SDS, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Samsung Networks, Samsung Electronics.

The structure of the chemical industry division includes five enterprises: Samsung Total Petrochemicals, Samsung Petrochemicals, Samsung Fine Chemicals, Samsung BP Chemicals. The industry brings the concern about $ 5 million a year due to the production of polyethylene, polypropylene, styrene monomer, paraxylene, as well as fuel.

There are only two divisions of the company operating in the heavy industry: Samsung Heavy Industries and Samsung Techwin. Only one company of the concern is engaged in construction: Samsung Engineering. The division builds offices and factories for the Samsung Group around the world and rarely outsourced orders. The non-core activity of the company is the automotive industry, while all assembled cars are used only for the domestic market.

The financial sector of the conglomerate includes as many as six companies: Samsung Life Insurance Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, Samsung Card Samsung, Samsung Securities, Investment Trust Management, Samsung Venture Investment.
Founded in 1973, Cheil Communications is responsible for the marketing support of the concern.

The entertainment and leisure industry is represented in the conglomerate by two companies: Samsung Everland and The Shilla Hotels & Resorts, which has been operating since 1979.

The company's turnover in 2011 amounted to $ 143.1 billion. Net profit in 2010 was $ 21.2 billion. The number of employees was about 222 thousand.

Ability to balance on the edge of a knife, instantly react to changes and be always on the alert - these are the distinctive qualities Many Korean companies have gone to the bottom, unable to withstand all kinds of "cleanup" and persecution, and Samsung not only survived, but also became a transnational corporation.

According to the biography of Samsung founder Lee Byong Chul, you can shoot an action movie in the spirit of Jackie Chan. "Three stars" - this is how the name of the company he founded in 1938 sounded in translation. At that time, this company did not even think about any high technologies, quietly supplying rice, sugar and dried fish to China and Manchuria. It looked like a protest against dependence on Japan, and Samsung has built a reputation as a patriotic entrepreneur. Then the company fed the American troops with beer and vodka, having specially built the largest plant. But for this (1950), the North Korean communists put the name of Lee Byong Chul as an accomplice of the puppet regime on the execution list.
If Lee hadn’t smelled roast, reinvested all profits, and converted all proceeds into cash, Samsung would then be gone. How the money stuck in a wine box survived is separate plot... The car in which they were taken was confiscated, the house in which they were hidden was completely burned down, and wooden box just charred! And Samsung, as they say, was reborn from the ashes.
The second time, Lee was put on the execution lists under Park Chung Hee. Formally - for illegal enrichment on government supplies and economic sabotage, but in fact, for hobnobbing with the Japanese, trying to learn from the experience of the zaibatsu (chaebol in Korean, but in our opinion, something like a powerful clan).
After a heartfelt conversation with General Lee, they not only did not shoot, but was appointed the head of the entrepreneurs of Korea. Samsung has become a concern that masters government orders and enjoys all kinds of subsidies and benefits. What the company, which grew into a huge conglomerate (1970), did not do everything - machine tools, ships, and chemical enterprises ...

In general, everything that was before the 70s somehow weakly correlates with the image of a modern corporation, and its real predecessor can rightfully be called Samsung-Sanyo Electronics - the first joint Korean-Japanese venture. True, cooperation with those very zaibatsu turned out to be not the most successful - the Japanese squeezed the latest technology and shared only obsolete ones, and the prices for components were bulging. This is one of the reasons for the removal of Sanyo from the name of the company - the Koreans just learned how to make semiconductors themselves. By the end of the 70s, Samsung Electronics had become the flagship enterprise of the Li empire, and in the late 80s, an economic crisis struck in Korea, and the company became unprofitable.
Samsung again had every chance to cease to exist, but this did not happen, since Lee the second (Kun Hee) had developed a rescue plan long before the crisis. It was planned to change everything, with the exception of wives and children. The key moment in the restructuring was a shift in priorities - quality became more important than quantity. The restructuring lasted 10 years and was crowned with success. One after another, the following companies went bankrupt: Hanbo, Daewoo, Huyndai, and Samsung increased its exports and established itself in the global high-tech market.

1995 can be called a turning point in the history of Samsung - the beginning of the company's transformation into a high-quality brand. The symbol of this moment is a photograph in which 2,000 employees smash to smithereens defective Samsung products - 150 thousand faxes, mobile phones and other devices. The last Asian crisis of 1997, Samsung Group survived with a new president - Jong-Yong Yun. Sacrificing his tail to save lives, Yun liquidated dozens of secondary businesses, laid off a third of its workforce, disrupting lifelong hiring practices, and relied on nascent digital technologies.
As you can see, while other companies were engaged in research and released the world's first novelties one after another - CD, transistor receiver, video camera, etc., Samsung survived, struggled with difficulties and developed. So it cannot be said about this company that in some distant year it came up with something innovative, and everyone fell in love with it. Samsung's hit products date back to this millennium.
It's even hard to imagine that this company once produced b / w televisions and other goods at "reasonable" prices. Today Samsung has become one of the most innovative and successful players in the consumer electronics and semiconductor market. It is the world's leading manufacturer of memory chips, flat panel LCDs and color TVs.

The company pioneered the development of SDRAM, the ultra-fast memory chips used in personal computers, and the dedicated memory chip used in the Sony PlayStation 2. A credit card sized camera phone! A third generation phone that accepts satellite TV programs! The smallest multifunction printer in the world! Surprisingly, in the summer of 2005, Samsung's brand value surpassed Sony for the first time! This was calculated by one of the British research companies.
In the TV market, Samsung has definitely bypassed not only Sony, but also Philips, and did it back in 2003. At CeBIT last year, Samsung wiped its nose by unveiling the world's largest 102-inch plasma panel(more than two meters!), in which even the head of Oracle Larry Alison signed up. The LCD TVs of the new models were checked out by magazines and experts, having noted this in various nominations such as "Best Buy" and "5 points". And the LN-57F51 BD LCD TV was even called a representative of a new era of TVs. Still, with it, even the room does not need to be darkened, since the picture quality does not depend on the ambient lighting.

Not a week goes by as Samsung announces something outstanding. Like the world's first mobile phone with a built-in 5-megapixel camera (now it has 7 megapixels) or the same first phone with a hard drive. In general, if we talk about the development trends of the company or even about its mission, it is both external and internal associated with digital convergence. This is when you look at a device and you cannot determine its class.
Take the SCH-S250 mobile phone, which has the functionality of a camcorder, MP3 player, 92 MB of memory and a display with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels - what kind of mobile is it? Samsung believes that it has no competitors in this convergence, since no other company has such a set of proprietary technologies as Samsung. A bit boastful, but similar to the truth, since Samsung is a real manufacturing company, not a label sticker on other people's products. Suffice it to say that Samsung is the only company in the world that makes laptops and monitors in their own factories without using OEMs.

But Samsung is not only a high-tech factory, as it might seem, but also a recognized R&D center. There is, for example, a simple-looking small TV. Do you know what is interesting about it? Looks like a modern LCD but is actually a pipe tube. This is an example of Samsung's innovative design thought. Another example: an antibacterial phone coated with a special paint that emits colloidal silver. Laptops will soon no longer have hard drives - they will be replaced with a new generation of flash memory, the release of which Samsung will deploy in 2007.

Samsung approached the war of HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats with a purely Korean cunning or sagacity - instead of supporting one of the parties, as did Sony and Toshiba, it took and developed a combo player that supports both formats. Samsung's maximum program is ambitious: to become one of the three leaders in the electronics industry, both in terms of volume and quality of products, and to double the number of leadership areas. The movement in this direction is noticeable with the naked eye - more and more new Samsung products are in the consumer range above the average and even in the premium segment.