Samsung, Ahead Of The Pack Essay, Research Paper

Samsung Electronics

Leading the Pack

Samsung is a multinational corporation originally based in Korea. Founded in nineteen thrity-eight by Byung-Chull Lee, the conglomerate’s roots were in the exportation of dried fruits, vegetables and fish from Korea to Manchuria. It’s hard to believe that one of the world’s electronic superpowers began with a guy driving a truck full of dried goods around the Korean countryside. Ten years after the company was founded, Byung-Chull Lee incorporated Samsung into Samsung inc. Samsung was run with an unorthodox style at the time, which meant stock options and profit sharing for the employees. This was very rare during that period in Asia and attracted many workers to the firm. It was this solid base that secured Samsungs place in the Korean market. It was not until the early sixties that Samsung entered the world stage of the electronics manufacturing market, and the rest is high tech history.

Today the Samsung Corporation is a multi-national giant, with it’s hand in everything from hi tech electronics, to no-tech life insurance. The firm has over twenty branches, the most high profile of which is Samsung Electronics. The three main business units contained within the Samsung Electronics firm are; Digital Media, Semi Conductors, and information & communication businesses. The firm has operations in fifty countries, with over fifty four thousand employees throughout the world. S.E. held down a sales revenue of KRW 34.3 trillion, how that converts to the US dollar, one can only guess. They have steadily continued to stay on the forefront of the international market, with new technology being released even as we speak.

Nowadays, Samsung Electronics is the most well known part of the corporation, and S. E. is best known these days for their wireless technology. Their two most recent breakthroughs being the mp3 playing PCS phone; the SPH-M100, and a Dick Tracy style watch-phone.

With the advent of portable MP3 players (of which Samsung also has two on the market) Music fans are able to download free music and carry it with them in small portable devices. MP3 technology allows listeners skip-free CD quality music at little or no cost. Samsung, or Sam as I so affectionately call the company, has taken things one step further and integrated the PCS phone and the MP3 player into one compact, convenient package. They call they new phone, the Uproar.

The Uproar is capable of storing up to one hour of Compact Disk quality audio, while still having all the bells and whistles that most cell phones have, plus a few extras such as voice activated dialing. The new technology has been slow to catch on, mainly due to high costs, however, Samsung is expecting the SPH-M100’s sales to boom in the next quarter.

Samsung’s two MP3 Digital Audio players, The Yepp and the PhotoYepp are compact lightweight players aimed at the younger market. According to Samsung: “With its new compact and stylish design, the yepp is suited for an unconventional young generation that seeks to be distinct.( http://www.samsungelectronics.com /digital_audio_player/digital_audio_player_index.html)” The Yepp is basically just an MP3 player in a cool box, however the PhotoYepp plays not only MP3’s but also displays Jpegs and Mpegs on it’s two inch color LCD screen. This could come in very handy for young Internet professionals.

Sam’s other new communication technology, The watch phone, is straight out of a science fiction movie. The wrist-mounted phone with voice capabilities operates exactly how one would imagine. Just hold up one’s wrist and talk. The product combines the best of digital watches and phones, and is only slightly larger and heavier than your average-above-average wristwatch. The product is marketed towards the techno-savvy businessmen, who need to have their hands free a lot during activities such as hiking, canoeing, or smacking around their lowly employees. The product is just ready to drop onto the American market, so professors better be getting ready for students watches to be ringing during class.

Although the uproar may not exactly be roaring just yet, and the watch phone hasn’t materialized on American wrists as of now, Samsung is still currently leading the field in cellular communications. The SCH-3500 was chosen in the February issue of consumer reports magazine as the best cellular phone on the US market. The SCH-3500 is a CDMA flip style phone, and was so chosen because of a wide array of reasons including ease-of-use, affordability, voice quality, and others. The phone received an all around Very Good rating, which is outstanding. “During 2000 this single model held the top share (28%) of the US market for mobile handsets ( sec0129-20010131164229.html)”

The SCH-3500 was also the proud winner of the Design and Engineering Excellence Award given by the US Consumer Electronics Association at the Consumer Electronics show 2000. All the positive feedback has Samsung planning to introduce new SCH models with even more features for the US market.

Over the years Samsung has grown from a small dried produce company to a huge, multi-national conglomerate. Their unorthodox methods have kept them afloat for many years and one can see that they will remain ahead of the pack for years to come. With new technology arising every minute, Samsung will have a hand in the planet’s future.

Works Cited

Nearly all information came from the Samsung website:

WWW.SAMSUNG.COM

Attached are the more pertinent articles used in the above paper.