Samsung

Introduction

Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul. It comprises numerous subsidiaries and an affiliated business, most of them united under the Samsung brand, and is the largest South Korean chaebol.

Notable Samsung industrial subsidiaries include Samsung Electronics (the world's largest information technology company measured by 2011 revenues), Samsung Heavy Industries (the world's second-largest  shipbuilder  measured by 2010 revenues), Samsung Engineering  and  Samsung C&T (respectively the world's 35th- and 72nd-largest construction companies), and Samsung Tech win (a weapons technology and auto electronics manufacturer).  Other notable subsidiaries include  Samsung Life Insurance (the world's 14th-largest life insurance company), Samsung Ever land (the oldest theme park in South Korea) and Cheil Worldwide (the world's 19th-largest advertising agency measured by 2010 revenues).

Samsung produces around a fifth of South Korea's total exports and its revenues are larger than many countries' GDP; in 2006, it would have been the world's 35th-largest economy. The company has a powerful influence on South Korea's economic development, politics, media and culture, and has been a major driving force behind the "Miracle on the Han River".

History

1938 – 1970, In 1938, Lee Byung-chull (1910–1987) of a large landowning family in the Uiryeong county came to the nearby Daegu city and founded Samsung Sanghoe a small trading company with forty employees located in Su-dong (now Ingyo-dong). It dealt in groceries produced in and around the city and produced its own noodles. The company prospered and Lee moved its head office to Seoul in 1947. When the Korean War broke out, however, he was forced to leave Seoul and started a sugar refinery in Busan as a name of Cheil Jedang. After the war, in 1954, Lee founded Cheil Mojikand built the plant in Chimsan-dong, Daegu. It was the largest woolen...