SAMSUNG is a multinational conglomerate company head quartered in Samsung Town, Seoul. It comprises around 80 companies with activities in areas like shipbuilding, financial services and consumer electronics.
Samsung was started as a trading company by Lee Byung-chul in 1938. He was from a large land owning family in the country side.
In the late 1960s, Samsung entered the electronics industry. The first product it made was a black and white television set. President Park Chung Hee placed great importance on the industrialization of South Korea and focused on the few domestic conglomerates and protected them from foreign competition and gave them financial assistance.
Samsung became the largest mobile phone maker in 2012, overtaking Nokia which had held this position since 1998.
