Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a South Korean multinational electronics company headquartered in Suwon, South Korea.[2] It is the flagship subsidiary of the Samsung Group and has been the world's largest information technology company by revenues since 2009.[3] Samsung Electronics has assembly plants and sales networks in 88 countries and employs around 370,000 people.[4] For a 2012 the CEO is Kwon Oh-Hyun.

Samsung has previously been known for its position as a manufacturer of components such as lithium-ion batteries, semiconductors, chips, flash memory and hard drive devices for clients such as Apple, Sony, HTC and Nokia.[6] [7] In recent years, Samsung Electronics has expanded upon its manufacturing roots and diversified into consumer markets leading to an ever increasing portfolio of products and revenue stream.

Samsung Electronics currently stands as one of the world's largest vendors in the mobile phone and smartphone markets fueled by the popularity of its Samsung Galaxy line of devices.[9] The company is also one of the largest vendors in the tablet computer market thanks to its Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Tab collection and is generally regarded as pioneering the phablet market through the Samsung Galaxy Note family of devices.

Samsung has been the world's largest maker of LCD panels since 2002, the world's largest television manufacturer since 2006,[11] and world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones since 2011.[12] Samsung Electronics displaced Apple Inc. as the world's largest technology company in 2011 and has been a major part of the Economy of South Korea.

In 2011, Samsung was ranked as India's fifth most trusted brand and in 2012, Samsung was ranked as India's fourth most trusted brand by The Brand Trust Report, an annual report published by Trust Research Advisory,.[13][14][15] In 2013, The Brand Trust Report,[16] ranked Samsung as India's second most trusted brand.

Semiconductors

A Samsung DDR-SDRAM
Samsung Electronics has been the world's-largest memory chip maker since 1993. In 2009 it started mass-producing 30 nm-class NAND flash memories.[66] It succeeded in 2010 in mass-producing 30 nm-class DRAMs and 20 nm-class NAND flashes, both of which were the first time in the world.

According to market-research firm Gartner, during the second quarter of 2010 Samsung Electronics took the top position in the DRAM segment due to brisk sales of the item on the world market. Gartner analysts said in their report, "Samsung cemented its leading position by taking a 35-percent market share. All the other suppliers had minimal change in their shares." The company took the top slot in the ranking, followed by Hynix, Elpida, and Micron, said Gartner.

Another hitherto not-well-publicized area where the company had significant business in for years is the foundry segment. It had begun investment in the foundry business sem service since 2006 and now positioned it as one of the strategic pillars for semiconductor growth.

In 2010, market researcher IC Insights predicted that Samsung would become the world's-biggest semiconductor chip supplier by 2014, surpassing Intel. For the ten-year period from 1999 to 2009, Samsung's compound annual growth rate in semiconductor revenues has been 13.5 percent, compared with 3.4 percent for Intel.