Company Overview
Samsung Electronics Company is an international electronics corporation based in Suwon, South Korea. As from 2009, the company has generated huge revenue, and hence remains the biggest technology corporation globally. It has assembling and marketing stores within eighty eight nations. It has at least 370,000 employees. Samsung operates several independent segments in the market; Mobile Communications, Telecommunications Systems, Digital Appliances, IT Solutions, Digital Imaging, Memory, System LSI (mobile application processors and CMOS image processors), Visual Display, and LCD (www.hoovers.com). It intends to develop its mobile devices, such as phones and tablets. It is also preparing itself for medical equipment as well as solar cell and health markets.
Samsung Electronics manufactures and markets consumer electronic products such as TVs and home appliances. It also produces semiconductors and telecommunication infrastructure products. Samsung Electronics operates through four business segments: digital media, telecommunications, semiconductor and liquid crystal display (LCD). The digital media segment includes products like digital TVs, monitors, audiovisual devices and printers. It also offers digital home appliances like refrigerators and washers among other appliances. The telecommunications segment supplies telecommunication systems, mobile phones and associated mobile products as well as solutions. The semiconductors segment is made up of three main subdivisions: memory, storage technologies and system large-scale integration (LSI). The products include; memory chips, system LSI circuits, hard disk drives and others. The LCD segment offers thin film transistor LCD modules and others. This segment produces panels for TVs, mobile phones, notebooks and desktop screens.
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd insists has three primary strategies, which are to solidify its market leadership by focusing on product differentiation in each business unit, to identify businesses that will ensure growth in the coming ten years and to prepare management to anticipate and respond to business risks during times of global market uncertainty.
Current Situation
Samsung Electronics has partnered with other high-tech titans. A partnership IBM Microelectronics enables it to share chip-making technology. It jointly produces large LCD television screens with Sony. In 2011 Samsung agreed to pay Sony around $935 million for the joint venture. This is the seventh straight year that Sony losses in its TV business, as well as declining demand for LCDs. When Sony succeeds to stop the losses, it will form a new partnership with Samsung to purchase flat screens. For its part, Samsung Electronics continues to invest in both LCD and OLED technology.
Samsung Electronics is also ridding itself of operations considered non-core. In 2011 Samsung Electronics sold its disk drive business to Seagate for about $1.4 billion in cash and stock. The deal gave Samsung Electronics a nearly 10% stake in Seagate and a spot on the company's board. As part of the transaction, Seagate will supply Samsung Electronics with disk drives for its consumer electronics products, while Samsung Electronics will provide Seagate with flash memory chips for storage devices. The two companies have teamed up before. In 2009 they began to jointly develop solid-state drives (SSDs), which are faster and more energy efficient than hard-disk drives and have become the storage technology of choice for mobile devices such as tablets, notebooks, and smart phones.
Conversely, Samsung Electronics is investing in industries it isn't traditionally known for. In 2011 the company bought the Nexus division of cardiac point-of-care testing products company ITC Nexus Holding. Earlier in the year, Samsung bought diagnostic ultrasound manufacturer Medison. These purchases are part of the company's goal to inject 1.2 trillion won (about $1 billion) into its strategy to grow as a healthcare technology player.
Samsung Electronics settled a memory chip price-fixing complaint brought by the European Commission in 2010, agreeing to pay a penalty of €145.7 million (about $180 million). The case was concluded under the regulatory body's fast-track settlement procedures, which allow members of alleged cartels to settle complaints with a 10% discount on their fines.
In August 2012 Samsung Electronics lost a patent infringement lawsuit with Apple in an ongoing copyright battle between the two. Samsung was found to have violated several Apple patents, including the "bounce back" effect and the physical design of the iPhone. It however, argued that the design similarities were not copying, but bench-marking (a practice used by companies to keep up with rivals on details such as battery life, screen size, and other core features) (McDonald, 2013). Apple was awarded $1 billion in damages (the company originally sought $2.75 billion), but Samsung plans to appeal. The verdict is complicated by a decision the same week in a South Korean court that each company had infringed on the others' patents that resulted in bans and fines for both parties. Samsung continues to be, nonetheless, a major supplier of components for Apple products, including the iPhones.
References
McDonald, D. (2013, April 16). Forget North Korea: There’s Only One Korean ‘Threat’— and It’s Called Samsung Electronics. New York Observer [New York].
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. : ENERGY STAR. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=pt_awards.showAwardDetails&esa_id=5115
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Company Profile from Hoover’s. (2013). Retrieved June 11, 2013,
(2013). Retrieved June 6, 2013, from www.sony.com
Samsung electronics co., ltd. (2013). (). Austin, United States, Austin: Dun and Bradstreet, Inc. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/230593885?accountid=14752
