On March 1, 1938, founding chairman Byung-Chull Lee started a business in Taegu, Korea with 30,000 won. At first, Mr. Lee's little business was primarily in trade export, selling dried Korean fish, vegetables, and fruit to Manchuria and Beijing. But in just over a decade, SAMSUNG - meaning literally "three stars" in Korean - would have its own flour mills and confectionery machines, its own manufacturing and sales operations, and ultimately become the roots of the modern global corporation that still bears the same name today.
Throughout the 1970s, SAMSUNG laid the strategic foundations for its future growth by investing in the heavy, chemical, and petrochemical industries.
The company's second "Five-Year Management Plan," announced in August 1973, targeted these industries and also introduced SAMSUNG to the shipbuilding industry. During this time, the company also took steps to enhance its competitive position in the world's textile industry, integrating its manufacturing processes from raw materials to end products. As a result, many new companies were created including SAMSUNG Heavy Industries Company in 1974, and SAMSUNG Shipbuilding Company (created when SAMSUNG acquired Daesung Heavy Industry Company) and SAMSUNG Precision Company (now SAMSUNG Techwin) in 1977.
The late 70s and early 80s represented a time of increasing diversification and global growth for SAMSUNG's core technology businesses.In 1978, SAMSUNG Semiconductor and SAMSUNG Electronics became separate entities as new products were introduced to the global market. SAMSUNG only produced semiconductors for the domestic market until the successful development of a 64K DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) VLSI chip in December 1983, when it became a world leader in semiconductor products. ...