How Samsung TOOK OVER Tech!
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2019-05-06
·
1,016 words · ~5 min read
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samsung means three stars in korean but if you're the proud owner of a fancy
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samsung phone tv or washing machine you might be
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expecting a five-star experience due to samsung positioning itself as a premium
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tech brand with price tags to match but expensive gadgets weren't what
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samsung was always known for in fact the company started all the way back in 1938
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in the korean city of taigu as a trading firm that dealt in foods like dried fish
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and noodles and then later expanded to seoul korea's capital after world war ii
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ended this period of prosperity was short-lived however as after the
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invasion of that city during the korean war samsung nearly went under only
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surviving thanks to its diversification the company actually established a sugar
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refinery in the port city of busan which was the only major city in korea that
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was untouched by communist aggression samsung also got involved in textiles
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and wood milling and as war economies are often kind to the manufacturing
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industry samsung's new businesses help them not only stay afloat but continue
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to expand after the war with insurance
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being one of their first divisions that didn't involve commodity trading in fact
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samsung is actually the largest insurance company in korea to this day
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all of this growth led samsung to become one of the chebules or massive korean
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companies that are primarily family run rather than mostly controlled by
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shareholders who have bought stock meaning that they became very
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influential in national politics in korea but it wasn't until 1969 that
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samsung started making electronics and perhaps unsurprisingly their first
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product was a small black and white television
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they continued to expand in the early 1970s by cranking out home appliances
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but there was an obstacle in their way samsung was relying on imports of small
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components in order to assemble their products so in 1974 they decided to buy
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a domestic semiconductor company in order to have greater control over their
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supply chain although this decision wasn't unanimous among the samsung brass
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it played a huge role in samsung's future fortunes having its own
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semiconductor manufacturing ARM allowed the company to make more electronics and
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ship them to more distant parts of the globe bringing in more money and helping
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them grow samsung then ventured into heavy industry defense construction chemicals
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and even a theme park and hotels in fact
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they still run a chain of luxury hotels in korea with the original location once
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serving as the official guest house for the korean government but getting back
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to electronics samsung started producing dram in the early 1980s a product
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they're still known for thanks to its earlier investment in manufacturing with
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help from micron and sharp now the timing for this was great as more and
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more devices were starting to use dram but not all was well in samsung land
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unlike today where samsung products are generally viewed as higher end its
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electronics from the 1980s and early 90s were poorly received and ironically this
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was especially true for their mobile phones in fact they had such a
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reputation for poor quality that japan-based motorola dominated the
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market even in their home turf of south korea for quite some time which is
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interesting when you consider that korea and japan have historically had pretty
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frosty relations this actually nearly led samsung to
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abandon the phone market completely but
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instead of giving up they decided to spend time figuring out how to make
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higher quality consumer goods instead of just churning out cheapo bargain
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basement offerings so samsung underwent a huge transformation in its electronics
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division 24 000 workers were laid off
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and huge parts of the company totaling around two billion dollars were sold
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then instead of trying to rush the next big thing
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to market samsung focused on making quality components both to sell to other
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companies and to help them improve their own consumer devices down the road and
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of course as a massive chebul they had
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quite a bit of money to pour into development this ended up paying huge
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dividends and samsung of course did ultimately become a premium brand for
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example they started making lcd displays fairly early on in the 1990s that meant
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that by the time they really started catching on with consumers samsung had
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already spent years perfecting them which set the stage for them to become
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one of the world's largest manufacturers of flat screen tvs and monitors this
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same strategy also helped samsung become a leader in the Android mobile phone
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market now although their galaxy obviously wasn't their first Android
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phone it was one of the first to showcase more advanced features than the
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iphone helping samsung become a real rival to apple to the point where they
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ended up doing some pretty clever marketing poking fun at the hype
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surrounding new idevice releases which really got consumers to start
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considering samsung as a serious premium alternative
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samsung's success in the mobile market did come with some unexpected
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consequences though and the hospital that they run in seoul actually has to
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give out discounted treatments for swipe induced carpal tunnel these days
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that last bit was a joke there's no discounted treatment although they do
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actually run a hospital in seoul this video is brought to you by massdrop
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featuring the sennheiser pc 37x gaming
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headset it features angled drivers and an open back design so it's got a nice
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and locational accuracy it comes with the noise cancelling microphone and you
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