Samsung

Samsung Electronics was established in Suwon, South Korea, as an arm of the Samsung Group. It initially manufactured black-and-white televisions, marking the beginning of Samsung's transformation from a trading company to an electronics giant.

Samsung announced its entry into semiconductor manufacturing, building its first VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) chip plant. This strategic bet, led by founder Lee Byung-chul, laid the foundation for Samsung to become the world's largest memory chip maker.

Samsung launched its first mobile phone, the SH-100, in the Korean market. While not initially a major hit, this marked the beginning of Samsung's mobile phone division, which would later dominate the global smartphone market.

Samsung overtook Japanese competitors to become the world's largest memory chip manufacturer. By the 2000s, Samsung commanded over 40% of the global DRAM and NAND flash market, becoming a dominant force in the semiconductor industry.

Samsung Electronics overtook Sony to become the world's largest manufacturer of LCD televisions in 2006, selling over 21 million units globally. The milestone was driven by Samsung's vertically integrated supply chain, enabling it to produce key components like LCD panels in-house. Samsung's TV dominance marked its transition from a follower to a leader in the consumer electronics industry.

Samsung became the world's second-largest mobile phone manufacturer in 2007, overtaking Motorola with a market share of over 13%. The achievement was fueled by a diverse lineup of feature phones across all price segments and strong global distribution. Samsung's ascent in mobile phones set the stage for the launch of the Galaxy S smartphone line in 2010.

Samsung launched the first Galaxy S smartphone, running Android with Samsung's TouchWiz interface. The Galaxy S series went on to rival Apple's iPhone as the world's leading smartphone line, with cumulative sales exceeding 3 billion units across all models.

Samsung launched the Galaxy Note with its large 5.3-inch screen and S Pen, creating the 'phablet' category. Combined with the Galaxy S III's massive success (over 60 million units sold), Samsung became the world's largest smartphone manufacturer by volume in 2011.

Samsung became the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer by unit sales, surpassing Nokia which had held the top position for 14 years. The Galaxy S II flagship was a critical and commercial success, establishing Samsung's Android-powered Galaxy line as the leading smartphone platform globally. Samsung's rise reflected its vertically integrated supply chain advantages in displays, memory, and batteries.

Lee Kun-hee suffered a heart attack, leading to his son Lee Jae-yong (Jay Y. Lee) assuming de facto leadership. Lee Jae-yong became Vice Chairman and later Chairman in 2022, guiding Samsung through legal challenges and global tech competition.

Samsung launched the Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones on April 21, 2017, introducing the 'Infinity Display' with an 18.5:9 aspect ratio and minimal bezels that set a new design standard for the entire smartphone industry. The devices also featured the Bixby virtual assistant and Samsung DeX desktop experience. The Galaxy S8 line became Samsung's most pre-ordered smartphone series and a commercial success.

Samsung launched the Galaxy Fold, the first mass-produced foldable smartphone, creating an entirely new product category in the mobile industry. The device featured a 7.3-inch foldable AMOLED display that opened like a book, pioneering the foldable form factor that competitors would later adopt. Samsung continued to iterate on the technology, releasing multiple generations of Galaxy Z Fold and Z Flip devices that refined foldable display durability and software optimization.

Samsung became the world's first company to mass-produce 3-nanometer chips using Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistor architecture, leapfrogging TSMC in process technology. The GAA technology represented a major breakthrough in semiconductor manufacturing.

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S24 series at Galaxy Unpacked in San Jose, introducing Galaxy AI - the companys first comprehensive on-device AI experience. Features included Live Translate, Chat Assist, Photo Assist with Generative Edit, Circle to Search (powered by Google), and real-time language translation. The launch marked Samsungs strategic pivot from hardware-centric to AI-centric mobile experiences, setting the template for the next generation of smartphones.

Samsung passed Nvidia's qualification tests for its fifth-generation 12-layer HBM3E memory after roughly 18 months of reported heat and power failures that had locked it out of the AI memory boom and ceded nearly the entire HBM market to SK Hynix. The clearance ended a product cycle in which Samsung had lost an estimated share of AI memory revenue, forced a management shakeup, and triggered emergency restructuring of its semiconductor division, marking the start of its recovery in AI memory supply.

On June 22, 2026, SK Hynix surpassed Samsung Electronics in market capitalization to become South Korea's most valuable listed company for the first time, ending Samsung's 26-year run at the top. The reversal was driven by SK Hynix's dominance in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips powering the AI boom while Samsung struggled for years to qualify its HBM3E products with Nvidia. The shift marked a historic changing of the guard in Korea's corporate hierarchy, long dominated by Samsung.

Samsung held Galaxy Unpacked in London, unveiling the eighth-generation Galaxy Z series including the first-ever Ultra model - the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra. The lineup featured agentic AI capabilities, enhanced multitasking on the foldable form factor, and the Galaxy Watch Ultra2 and Watch9. The introduction of the Ultra tier marked a significant expansion of Samsungs foldable strategy, targeting premium power users alongside the standard Fold8 and Flip8.

Samsung Electronics signed a landmark USD 200 billion collaboration with Broadcom spanning memory, foundry, and advanced packaging through 2030 at a South Korean presidential summit in San Francisco. The deal was part of a combined USD 950 billion in AI chip supply commitments from South Korea's two memory giants. Samsung's agreement covers HBM memory supply, foundry services, and advanced packaging for Broadcom's AI accelerators, signaling Samsung's strategic pivot to become a second-source foundry and packaging partner alongside TSMC for next-generation AI infrastructure.

Samsung Electronics led French AI company Mistral AI's EUR 3 billion (USD 3.5 billion) Series D round, the largest equity fundraising by a European technology company, valuing Mistral at over EUR 21 billion (USD 24 billion). The EU-backed Scaleup Europe Fund also joined as a main investor. The deal marks Samsung's largest direct investment in a frontier model developer as it pushes to embed sovereign European AI into its devices and deepen AI ties beyond its home-grown Galaxy AI stack.