samsung electric industries type public company industry consumer electronics semiconductors home appliances founded 13 january 1969 ; 47 years ago 1969 01 13 as samsung electric industries 1988 1988 as samsung electronics headquarters suwon 1 south korea area served worldwide key people lee kun hee chairman lee jae yong vice chairman kwon oh hyun vice chairman and ceo products see products listing revenue 140.650 trillion 2015 2 operating income 26.410 trillion 2015 2 profit 19.060 trillion 2015 2 total assets 192.179 trillion 2016 2 total equity 168.088 trillion 2015 2 number of employees 392 305 2016 parent samsung 1969 present divisions samsung telecommunications subsidiaries samsung medison 68.5 % 2 website samsung.com this article contains korean text . without proper rendering support you may see question marks boxes or other symbols instead of hangul and hanja . samsung electronics quarterly results samsung electronics co. ltd. korean ; hanja literally 3 star electronics stylized as s msung is a south korean multinational electronics company headquartered in suwon south korea . 1 through extremely complicated ownership structure with some circular ownership 3 it is the flagship division of the samsung group accounting for 70 % of the group s revenue in 2012 . 4 it is the world s second largest information technology company by revenue after apple . 5 samsung electronics has assembly plants and sales networks in 80 countries and employs around 370 000 people . 6 since 2012 kwon oh hyun has served as the company s ceo . 7 8 samsung has long been a major manufacturer of electronic components such as lithium ion batteries semiconductors chips flash memory and hard drive devices for clients such as apple sony htc and nokia . 9 10 in recent years the company has diversified into consumer electronics . 11 not in citation given it is the world s largest manufacturer of mobile phones and smartphones fueled by the popularity of its samsung galaxy line of devices . 12 the company is also a major vendor of tablet computers particularly its android powered samsung galaxy tab collection and is generally regarded as pioneering the phablet market through the samsung galaxy note family of devices . 13 samsung has been the world s largest television manufacturer since 2006 14 and world s largest manufacturer of mobile phones since 2011 . 15 samsung electronics displaced apple inc. as the world s largest technology company in 2011 and is a major part of the south korean economy . citation needed in june 2014 samsung published the tizen os with the new samsung z. contents 1 history 1.1 1969 1987 early years 1.2 1988 1995 consumer struggles 1.3 1995 2008 component manufacturing 1.4 2008 to present consumer products 2 logo 3 operations 4 products 4.1 lcd and led panels 4.2 mobile phones 4.3 semiconductors 4.4 televisions 4.5 other 5 management and board of directors 6 market share 7 major clients 7.1 relationship with apple inc. 7.2 relationship with best buy co. inc. 8 design 9 environmental record 10 litigation and legal issues 10.1 worker safety 10.2 dram price fixing 10.3 apple lawsuit 10.4 product safety 10.4.1 galaxy note 7 10.5 advertisements on smart televisions 10.6 viral marketing 10.7 alleged programmed failure of products 11 sports clubs 12 slogans 13 see also 14 references 15 external links history edit 1969 1987 early years edit samsung electric industries was established as an industry samsung group in 1969 in suwon south korea . 16 its early products were electronic and electrical appliances including televisions calculators refrigerators air conditioners and washing machines . in 1970 samsung group established another subsidiary samsung nec jointly with japan s nec corporation to manufacture home appliances and audiovisual devices . in 1974 the group expanded into the semiconductor business by acquiring korea semiconductor one of the first chip making facilities in the country at the time . the acquisition of korea telecommunications an electronic switching system producer was completed at the start of the next decade in 1980 . by 1981 samsung electric industries had manufactured over 10 million black and white televisions . in february 1983 samsung s founder lee byung chull along with the board of the samsung industry and corporation agreement and help by sponsoring the event made an announcement later dubbed the tokyo declaration in which he declared that samsung intended to become a dram dynamic random access memory vendor . one year later samsung became the third company in the world to develop a 64 kb dram . citation needed in 1988 samsung electric industries merged with samsung semiconductor & communications to form samsung electronics as before that they had not been one company and had not been a leading corporation together but they were not rivals as they had been in talks for a time until they finally merged . 1988 1995 consumer struggles edit samsung electronics launched its first mobile phone in 1988 in the south korean market . 17 sales were initially poor and by the early 1990s motorola held a market share of over 60 percent in the country s mobile phone market compared to just 10 percent for samsung . 17 samsung s mobile phone division also struggled with poor quality and inferior products until the mid 1990s and exit from the sector was a frequent topic of discussion within the company . 18 1995 2008 component manufacturing edit lee kun hee decided that samsung needed to change strategy . the company shelved the production of many under selling product lines and instead pursued a process of designing and manufacturing components and investing in new technologies for other companies . in addition samsung outlined a 10 year plan to shrug off its image as a budget brand and to challenge sony as the world s largest consumer electronics manufacturer . it was hoped in this way samsung would gain an understanding of how products are made and give a technological lead sometime in the future . this patient vertical integration strategy of manufacturing components has borne fruit for samsung in the late 2000s . 19 as samsung shifted away from consumer markets the company devised a plan to sponsor major sporting events . one such sponsorship was for the 1998 winter olympics held in nagano japan . 20 as a chaebol samsung group wielded wealth that allowed the company to invest and develop new technology rather than build products at a level which would not have a detrimental impact on samsung s finances . 21 samsung had a number of technological breakthroughs particularly in the field of memory which are commonplace in most electrical products today . this includes the world s first 64mb dram in 1992 256 mb dram in 1994 1gb dram in 1996 . 22 in 2004 samsung developed the world s first 8gb nand memory chip and a manufacturing deal was struck with apple in 2005 . a deal to supply apple with memory chips was sealed in 2005 and as of october 2013 samsung remains a key supplier of apple components manufacturing the a7 processors that are inside the iphone 5s model . 23 24 2008 to present consumer products edit the samsung display at the 2008 internationale funkausstellung in berlin for four consecutive years from 2000 to 2003 samsung posted net earnings higher than five percent ; this was at a time when 16 out of the 30 top south korean companies ceased operating in the wake of the unprecedented crisis . 25 26 in 2005 samsung electronics surpassed its japanese rival sony for the first time to become the world s twentieth largest and most popular consumer brand as measured by interbrand . 27 in 2007 samsung electronics became the world s second largest mobile phone maker overtaking motorola for the first time . 28 in 2009 samsung achieved total revenues of us 117.4 billion overtaking hewlett packard to become the world s largest technology company measured by sales . 29 in 2009 and 2010 the us and eu fined the company together with eight other memory chip makers for its part in a price fixing scheme that occurred between 1999 and 2002 . other companies fined included infineon technologies elpida memory and micron technology . 30 31 32 33 34 in december 2010 the eu granted immunity to samsung electronics for acting as an informant during the investigation lg display au optronics chimei innolux chunghwa picture tubes and hannstar display were implicated as result of the company s intelligence . 35 36 despite its consistent expansion samsung along with its chairman lee kun hee has developed a reputation for insecurity regarding its financial stability and the potential for future crises to arise . after returning from a temporary retirement period in march 2010 kun hee stated that samsung electronics future is not guaranteed because most of our flagship products will be obsolete in 10 years from now . 37 the company has set an ambitious goal of reaching 400 billion in annual revenues within ten years . the company has 24 research and development centers around the world and since the early 2000s and in the vision 2020 samsung has emphasized technical research and development . however the large number of online complaints indicate that the company is weak at listening to customer feedback regarding the design of its technology and software . in april 2011 samsung electronics sold its hdd commercial operations to seagate technology for approximately us 1.4 billion . the payment was composed of 45.2 million seagate shares 9.6 percent of shares worth us 687.5 million and a cash sum for the remainder . 38 in may 2013 samsung announced that it had finally managed to test speed enhanced fifth generation 5g technology successfully . in april 2013 samsung electronics new entry into its galaxy s series smartphone range the galaxy s4 was made available for retail . released as the upgrade of the best selling galaxy s iii the s4 was sold in some international markets with the company s exynos processor . 39 in july 2013 samsung electronics forecasted weaker than expected profits for its april to june quarter . while analysts expected around 10.1 trillion won samsung electronics estimated an operating profit of 9.5 trillion us 8.3 billion . 40 during the same month samsung acquired the media streaming device manufacturer boxee for a reported 30 million . 41 samsung s mobile business chief shin jong kyun stated to the korea times on 11 september 2013 that samsung electronics will further develop its presence in china to strengthen its market position in relation to apple . the samsung executive also confirmed that a 64 bit smartphone handset will be released to match the arm based a7 processor of apple s iphone 5s model that was released in september 2013 . 42 due to smartphone sales especially sales of lower priced handsets in markets such as india and china samsung achieved record earnings in the third quarter of 2013 . the operating profit for this period rose to about 10.1 trillion won us 9.4 billion a figure that was boosted by memory chip sales to customers such as apple inc. 24 on 14 october 2013 samsung electronics publicly apologized for using refurbished components from cheaper desktop computers to fix higher end products after the corporation s unethical business practices were exposed on the previous day by mbc tv s current affairs magazine 2580 . 43 samsung provided sponsorship for the 86th academy awards ceremony held 2 march 2014 and due to the use of the samsung galaxy note smartphone product by host ellen degeneres in a group selfie photograph that became an online viral phenomenon the corporation donated us 3 million to two charitable organizations selected by degeneres . the official samsung statement explained ... we wanted to make a donation to ellen s charities of choice st jude s and the humane society . samsung will donate 1.5 million dollars to each charity . 44 45 on 17 april 2014