is Coming to Korea - Korea IT Times

Starting from the left is Lee Kun-hee, Lee Byung-chul,
and Lee Myung-hee (late Lee's youngest daughter) at the
opening of Shinsegae department store
Lee Byung-chul being awarded on honorary
doctorate at Boston College in 1982
ing in Japan, refusing to go back to Korea
and confront the incumbent president, because
he did not want to walk into the
mouse trap where he will be the main target
as the richest man in Korea.
Nonetheless, he and President Park
made a deal that ultimately became the
pillar for Korea's conglomerate. The deal
is as follows: Samsung is allowed to keep
the business running, but it has to be the
carrier that implements governmental projects
that are in concurrent with President
Park's plan. Although the deal draws a picture
of Lee succumbing to the government,
such plan established the nature of
Korean economic system, in which the
government and the business circle formed
a common ground of interest that will benefit
the two. Thus, business profits the
companies earn in Korea can well be interpreted
as the government partially subsidizing
in one way or another. Samsung,
however, in a long term, made progress
day after day and month after month that
it now sees record profits and revenue.
It started as an exports company in
1938, and soon mushroomed and employed
well over 400,000 employees and
manufactures electronics, vehicles, chemicals,
and textiles, ships, and runs hotels in
its subsidiaries. Now Samsung Electronics
is known to be one of the top 10 brands in
the world and it operates in five major
business areas: Telecommunication,
Digital and Home Appliances, Digital
Media, LCD, and Semiconductors.
Intimidated and revered by Japan, Taiwan
and other countries worldwide and not to
Hoam Lee Byung-chul, practicing calligraphy.
He is writing 'modesty' in Chinese characters
mention domestically, Samsung
Electronics with its hard-line expansion
had managed to crush market share of
every company to become the top manufacturer
of DRAM, home appliances,
flash memory, DVD-combo players, and
several other devices and is now the forerunner
in plasma displays and next generation
mobile phones. Recently, Samsung
even became a dominant player in notoriously
selective Japan.
Samsung's development in
chronological order
At the age of 26, he used his father's inherited
money to start a rice mill in his
home town, Kyungnam. The venture
went off to a rocky road so he moved to
Daegu and began a trucking and real estate
business naming it Samsung, which
means 'three stars'. To make it worse the
business went bankrupt due to credit
squeeze that came from Japanese invasion
of Manchuria. However, Lee got back on
the rails and started business where he
added domestic and international trading
to the former trucking and real estate business
that he had originally started from.
And that is how Samsung Trading
Company developed in the midst of tense
situation in the Korean peninsula. In
1953, he started the foremost sugar refining
company in Korea called 'Cheil Sugar'.
Cheil meaning 'first' flourished afterwards
and made high profits. In 1952, he established
additional subsidiary called Cheil
Wool Textile Company. Since then,
Samsung Electronics emerged and had become
the dominant group even outshining
worldwide leader Intel in investment for
2005 fiscal records. In 1971, Samsung
Electronics succeeded exporting domestic
TVs to overseas for the first time and invented
the world's fourth VCR consecutively.
From then on, Samsung produced
color TVs for the first time in Korea in
1976, and was rated as number one blackand-white
color TV manufacturer in the
world. In this fashion, Samsung went
from success to success; riding on the crest
of a wave and with no doubt Lee planted
the seeds of these successes. He also served
as chairman of the Federation of Korean
Industries, a prominent business organization
that is comprised of the country's leading
business executives.
Samsung Empire
There are four major groups that culminate
Samsung Group and they are
Hansol, CJ, and Shinsegae group. Cheil
Jedang, known as CJ, is a Korean conglomerate
that diversified from its mother
company, Samsung. It is owned and operated
by Lee Jae-hyun, the grandson of
Lee. It also opened a chain of multiplex
movie theaters under the name of CGV.
The Shinsegae Group is mainly known for
its department stores and is managed by
Lee's youngest daughter, Lee Myung-hee.
As of today, Samsung Group has 64 subsidiaries
and employs roughly 30,000 employees
and combines for revenue of KR₩
200 trillion (US$172.3 billion), occupying
approximately one-fifth of Korea's gross
domestic product (GDP).
Bang Jung-hyun / jbang@koreaittimes.com
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