Samsung Case Analysis

Over the course of the past 80 years, Samsung has become a household name. Currently, the company manufactures and sells everything from refrigerators to televisions to smartphones. But Samsung was not always a multinational appliance and electronics giant. The company, which was founded in 1938 by Byung-Chull Lee in Taegu, Korea, began as a small exportation company, trading dried fish and produce with China (Grobart). Samsung has since become one of the strongest leaders in smartphone manufacturing and sales in the global market. Samsung has been a name tantamount to the electronics industry since 1993, when Lee Kun Hee (who took over the company after his father’s passing in 1987) transformed the business from a small TV manufacturing company

In 1991, Samsung began manufacturing LCD television panels and selling them to other companies. Using the profits earned from these sales, Samsung started building larger facilities to manufacture and distribute their own lines of digital televisions at a lower cost than some competitors. In 1998, Samsung developed the first flat-screen TV and it began mass producing the first digital TV the following year. In June 2009, Samsung partnered with Google’s Android and introduced their first smartphone, the Galaxy. By 2012, Samsung had surpassed Nokia to become the number one global mobile-phone manufacturer

The company’s competitive advantage over other smartphone manufacturers should continue remain strong as long as organizations like Apple continue buying the touchscreens and microprocessors manufactured by Samsung, but Samsung is currently facing some tough challenges. In order to remain competitive with Samsung, Apple has started manufacturing smartphones with larger screens, like the iPhone 6 Plus, closing the gap in Samsung’s competitive advantage. Apple has also launched an initiative to begin purchasing the major components of their iPhones from Samsung’s competitors. In fact, Apple plans to stop purchasing at least 80% of the key components from Samsung by the end of 2017 (Kim). However, the loss of this business from its largest US competitor is not the only issue Samsung is currently