In 1938, Lee Byung-chull (1910–1987) of the large landowning family in the Uiryeong county came to the nearby Daegu city and founded Samsung Sanghoe (μΌμ±μν), a small trading company with forty employees located in Su-dong (now Ingyo-dong). It dealt in groceries produced in and around the city and produced noodles itself. The company prospered and Lee moved its head office to Seoul in 1947. When the Korean War broke out, however, he was forced to leave Seoul and started a sugar refinery in Busan as a name of Cheil Jedang. After the war, in 1954, Lee founded Cheil Mojik and built the plant in Chimsan-dong, Daegu. It was the largest woolen mill ever in the country and the company took on an aspect of a major company.
Samsung diversified into many areas and Lee sought to establish Samsung as an industry leader in a wide range of enterprises, moving into businesses such as insurance, securities, and retail. Lee placed great importance on industrialization, and focused his economic development strategy on a handful of large domestic conglomerates, protecting them from competition and assisting them financially. He later banned several foreign companies from selling consumer electronics in South Korea in order to protect Samsung from foreign competition.
In the late 1960s, Samsung Group began the electronics industry. It formed several electronics-related divisions, such as Samsung Electronics Devices Co., Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co., Samsung Corning Co., and Samsung Semiconductor & Telecommunications Co., and made the facility in Suwon. Its first product was a black-and-white television set. In 1980, the company acquired Hanguk Jeonja Tongsin in Gumi, and started to build telecommunication devices. Its early products were switchboards. The facility were developed into the telephone and fax manufacturing systems and became the centre of Samsung's mobile phone manufacturing. They have produced over 800 million mobile phones to date. The company grouped them together under Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. in the 1980s.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Samsung Electronics invested heavily in research and development, investments that were pivotal in pushing the company to the forefront of the global electronics industry. In 1982, it built a television assembly plant in Portugal; in 1984, a plant in New York; in 1985, a plant in Tokyo; in 1987, a facility in England; and another facility in Austin in 1996. In total, Samsung has invested about $5.6 billion in the Austin location – by far the largest foreign investment in Texas and one of the largest single foreign investments in the United States. The new investment will bring the total Samsung investment in Austin to more than $9 billion.
Samsung started to rise as an international corporation in the 1990s. Samsung's construction branch was awarded a contract to build one of the two Petronas Towers in Malaysia, Taipei 101 in Taiwan and the Burj Khalifa in United Arab Emirates.In 1993, Lee Kun-hee sold off ten of Samsung Group's subsidiaries, downsized the company, and merged other operations to concentrate on three industries: electronics, engineering, and chemicals. In 1996, the Samsung Group reacquired the Sungkyunkwan University foundation.
Compared to other major Korean companies, Samsung survived the 1997 Asian financial crisis relatively unharmed. However, Samsung Motor was sold to Renault at a significant loss. As of 2010, Renault Samsung is 80.1 percent owned by Renault and 19.9 percent owned by Samsung. Additionally, Samsung manufactured a range of aircraft from the 1980s to 1990s. The company was founded in 1999 as Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), the result of merger between then three domestic major aerospace divisions of Samsung Aerospace, Daewoo Heavy Industries, and Hyundai Space and Aircraft Company. However, Samsung still manufactures aircraft engines. Samsung Techwin has been the sole supplier of a combustor module of the Trent 900 engine of the Rolls-Royce Airbus A380 since 2001. Samsung Techwin of Korea are revenue-sharing participants in the Boeing's 787 Dreamliner GEnx engine program.
Samsung became the largest producer of memory chips in the world in 1992, and is the world's second-largest chipmaker after Intel (see Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Market Share Ranking Year by Year). In 1995, it built its first liquid-crystal display screen. Ten years later, Samsung grew to be the world's largest manufacturer of liquid-crystal display panels. Sony, which had not invested in large-size TFT-LCDs, contacted Samsung to cooperate, and, in 2006, S-LCD was established as a joint venture between Samsung and Sony in order to provide a stable supply of LCD panels for both manufacturers. S-LCD is owned by Samsung (50% plus 1 share) and Sony (50% minus 1 share) and operates its factories and facilities in Tangjung, South Korea.
Samsung Electronics overtook Sony as one of the world's most popular consumer electronics brands in 2004 and 2005, and is now ranked #19 in the world overall. Behind Nokia, Samsung is the world's second largest by volume producer of cell phones with a leading market share in the North America and Western Europe. SCTV and Indosiar are subsidiary of Surya Citra Media that owned by Samsung.