The Korean Kid Who Created Samsung During A Time Of Great Struggle

In much of the world, chances are high that someone's first smartphone is usually a Samsung. The company has soared to the top with a reputation for cost-effectiveness, innovation and quality in everything they make. But who was responsible for this? How did Samsung achieve success? Lee Byung-chul was born the youngest son of four siblings to Kwon Jae-lim and Lee Chan-woo. Byung-chul was the son of a prosperous Yangban family that owned land, albeit as a minor branch of the Lee clan. That land was located in Yeoryeong County, province of South Gyeongsang. The Yangban in Korean society was comparable to the landed nobility in the Middle East, Europe, China and Japan, and was usually the privileged ruling class. He was born during a time of great struggle in the then Korean Empire in 1910. As it was the time during which the Empire of Japan was annexing the country as a colony. Nevertheless, most of the Korean Yangban became the subservient Korean nobility through which the Japanese exerted their control, and Lee Byung-chul's family was one of them. Keeping the privilege, he completed his high school education at Seoul's Jungdong High School before moving to Tokyo to pursue his post-secondary education at Waseda University, though he did not finish. His time after returning from Japan is not known about, but it can be surmised that he spent the time looking after his family's properties and estates. It was also during this time that the Japanese authorities began to introduce forced cultural assimilation and Japanization, so dealing with such a predicament may also have taken up his time. After this time, he eventually started his own business, a grocery trading company that he named Samsung Trading Company. The name Samsung means three stars. The name was a reference to the Korean cultural understanding of a constellation about which Korean folklore tells the tale of a well-meaning dragon fighting against an evil one. With the Samsung Trading Company, Lee Byung-chul traded noodles and other consumer products made in and around the city of Daegu, then exported to China and its provinces. The company profited off the increased demand for essential goods such as food and care products as World War II began, with the Korean and Japanese home markets cutting their spending on luxury items. As a result of the company's success, Lee relocated its headquarters to Seoul in 1947. He was forced to flee Seoul when the Korean War started because the Korean People's Army had taken over most of South Korea. He went to Busan, where he focused on Cheoljaedang, the sugar refinery he founded in the city, which was followed in 1954 by Cheolmojik, which he founded and constructed in Chimseondong, Daegu. These businesses were established under the Samsung brand, effectively diversifying it into different kinds of products. On a side note, Cheoljaedang exists today as Korea's leading food culture company engaged in advanced food research works. It was also during this time that Lee had a partner named Cho Hong-jae, who was responsible for breaking Samsung into other kinds of goods, but they had a dispute over differences in management style. This led them to split apart and therefore, Samsung Group was divided into the Hyosung Group, the Samsung Group, Hankook Tire, and other companies. During this period, Samsung was run with the focused aim of helping Korea industrialize rapidly. His company benefited from the new protectionist measures the Korean government had put in place. These measures aimed to aid the chaebol, or large domestic conglomerates, by shielding them from the competition and facilitating easy financing. Samsung was one of those chaebols as he ran it as a family-owned business, grooming his third son, Lee Kun-hee, to take over eventually. The company bought three of Korea's biggest commercial banks in the late 1950s, along with an insurance provider, a cement manufacturer, and a fertilizer manufacturer. In the 1960s, Samsung bought additional insurance firms, an oil refinery, a nylon manufacturer, and a department store. In 1969, Samsung made its debut in the electronics sector with a number of divisions These included Samsung Corning, Samsung Semiconductor and Telecommunications, Samsung Electromechanics, and Samsung Electronics Devices. A partnership between Samsung and Sanyo also got underway, opening the door for the manufacture of consumer goods like TVs and microwaves. The first black-and-white TVs Samsung Sanyo produced were for the Korean market in 1970, and they were a big success because Korean consumers preferred them to Japanese sets. Samsung was able to innovate quickly because it was already a significant manufacturer in Korea and had acquired a 50% stake in Korea Semiconductor. Samsung also made transistor black-and-white TVs, color TVs, refrigerators, electric desk calculators, and air conditioners over the following 10 years. The company produced 5 million TVs, a significant milestone in 1978. Samsung Heavy Industries was one of the world's biggest shipbuilders by 1974. The business founded Samsung Electronics America and Suwon R&D Center in the later part of the 1970s. By this time, it was clear Lee Byung-chul had made it. He was already topping the list of richest Koreans consistently. Lee also held the position of Chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries, a powerful business organization made up of the top businessmen in the nation, including representatives from LG and Samsung. This gave the chaebols significant influence over the development of the nation's fiscal and monetary policies, the effects of which are still being debated today. With the acquisition of Hankuk Jeonja Tongsin in 1980, Samsung made its foray into the telecommunications hardware sector. Samsung started out making telephone switchboards, then developed into telephone and fax systems, before switching to the production of mobile phones in 1988. It was around this time, in 1987, that Lee Byung-chul died a natural death, leading to the previously mentioned Lee Hong-ki, his third son, to take over as president of Samsung. At first, though, Samsung did not see the sales it had hoped for because Motorola, a 1928-founded telecommunications company, already controlled 60% of the Korean mobile phone market. Samsung had only been able to secure a 10% hold at the time. This issue persisted for a number of years, with Samsung's products being infamous for their subpar performance and quality. It is said that because of these problems, company management frequently thought about leaving the cell phone market. Samsung is one of the few mobile phone companies that exceeded expectations and reached the absolute top of the market, despite the fact that it is not the only business to have struggled in the mobile phone sector. Companies like LG and Amazon completely failed in such endeavors. This was made possible by one crucial choice. It wasn't until 1995, a few years after Samsung unveiled its first cell phone, that it was determined the company required a new business plan for the future. The person who initiated this change was Lee Kun-hee. It was decided that the business would place a greater emphasis on cutting-edge technology rather than the less coveted and lucrative goods that they were currently peddling. The company decided to invest in new technologies rather than continue with such products. Early in the 21st century, Samsung's tech business grew and expanded, and it eventually surpassed Sony to overtake it as the 20th largest consumer company in the world. Additionally, it cemented its position as the most well-liked consumer brand overall. Lee Kun-hee also led the company to invest heavily in the development of smartphones. The Samsung Galaxy S, the company's first smartphone, was released in June 2010. The phone was well-received by the public, who compared it favorably to other popular Android-powered smartphones like the Nexus One and HTC Desire. Critics and news media alike praised the Galaxy S for its Super AMOLED display, but it also faced criticism for its subpar GPS features and deteriorating performance over time. Samsung has produced dozens of smartphones since the launch of the Galaxy S, each one outperforming the last in terms of new features and system upgrades. Some products, like the Galaxy Note Edge, achieved the utmost levels of success. Due to its curved screen edges, the 2014 release of the Galaxy Note Edge was distinctive. This curved screen technology has been incorporated into many phones that have been released since the first Edge, including the Galaxy S8 and S9. The phone, which at the time was viewed as more of a concept product, was nevertheless widely publicized and served as an inspiration for subsequent phones. The tablet features an 8-megapixel camera, an octa-core processor, and a 9.7-inch screen. Samsung has released a number of excellent tablets since the Tab S2's success, with the Galaxy Tab Active 3 being the most recent in 2020. With its most recent technological advancements enabling the release of foldable smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold and the Galaxy Z Fold 2, Samsung has come a long way since the company's first smartphone was released in 2010. Samsung is currently led by Lee Jae-Jong, following his father, Lee Kun-hee's, death. In recent times, however, the company has been facing the consequences of a major scandal. The performance of over 10,000 apps, including system apps, Google apps, Instagram, TikTok, Netflix, Microsoft Office, and a number of other third-party apps, was found to be slower by over 56 percent when Samsung's game-optimizing service was tested on some of the Galaxy flagship devices. The list of these apps was even created by the South Korean tech forum Meeko. Additionally, it became clear that the GOS restrictions did not include benchmarking apps. This means that even though apps were slowing down for Galaxy users, their devices were still reporting exaggerated performance numbers for these apps. In fact, due to the problem, the well-known benchmarking website Geekbench resigned from supporting Samsung's most recent flagship smartphones, which include the new Galaxy S22 series flagships. The game-optimization service, GOS, app-throttling scandal has been officially apologized for by Samsung VC and CEO Jung Hee Han, to users of the company's flagship Galaxy devices. Jung Hee assured Samsung customers at the company's annual shareholders meeting that the company would listen to customers more closely to prevent such an issue from happening again. Lee Jae-Jung's own succession to leadership was complicated by Korean law not long before this. Seeking to avoid massive, legally mandated succession taxes, he issued a rare apology over contentious succession plans and declared he would not give his children management rights at the family-run conglomerate. It followed Korean prosecutors indicting him for a number of violations and a lengthy court battle too. President of the Republic of Korea Moon Jae-in succeeded his ousted predecessor Park Kyung-hee in 2017 and campaigned on a platform of reforming family-run conglomerates that control the economy. He also pledged that he would not pardon tycoon convictions lightly, as he claimed had been done in the past. The current times are not so good for Samsung. Samsung's current interest in AI is evidence that it has no plans to slow down in its effort to produce cutting-edge technology for the general public. The Galaxy S8 introduced Samsung's built-in AI system, Bixby, which functions similarly to Apple's Siri and already provides users with an AI experience. With its effort to integrate AI into people's daily lives, Samsung is now advancing further into the field of artificial intelligence. According to Samsung, it is now concentrating on the user experience and advantages of using AI, with a primary focus on the user rather than just the AI itself. Samsung will continue to try to embrace the use of AI within its upcoming devices. By 2022, Samsung intends to invest $22 billion in cutting-edge technology, with 5G and AI taking the lead. Samsung intends to hire 1,000 new scientists at AI-focused research facilities around the world as part of its research initiative. Overall projected investments in the coming future are supposed to reach over $206 million, and through 2023 these investments will be made. The company claims that this move will give it the opportunity to improve its position internationally in cutthroat markets like the chip market while also giving it new growth prospects in next-generation telecommunications and robotics. The precise sums that Samsung Electronics will spend on each of the industries highlighted were not broken down. However, it emphasized once more that mergers and acquisitions are being thought about in order to consolidate technology and take the lead in the market. This means they are going back to their tried-and-true method of advancing their technology by acquiring new companies and startups. Have you already heard of the story of Samsung? 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