Samsung

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, designs and produces a range of consumer electronics, including televisions, printers, monitors, refrigerators, smartphones, computers, network systems, digital cameras, and air conditioners. The company also sells life insurance and other products, but is primarily known for these services only in its home country of Korea.

Samsung is well known for its smartphones, which have gained the company greater market share since 2006, when it first one top global market share. Its flat-panel televisions are also popular mid-market devices, and the company has been the leading provider of televisions and other home electronics for the past eight years.

Originally founded in 1938 by Lee Byung-chi as a trading company, Samsung got its start as a purveyor of food processors, textiles, insurance, and securities. It wasn’t until the 1960s that Samsung expanded its reach to consumer electronics—the role for which the company is primarily known today.

Samsung is publicly traded in the U.S. and abroad, and often sponsors local venues, including a Samsung Medical Center. The company is home to a number of subsidiary divisions, including Samsung Electronics, Samsung Heavy Industries, Samsung Engineering, and Samsung C&T. Samsung Life Insurance owns and operates South Korea’s oldest theme park.