Samsung was founded as a grocery trading store on March 1, 1938, by Lee Byung-Chullin Taegu, Korea, trading noodles and other goods produced in and around the city and exporting them to China and its provinces. (The company name, Samsung, came from the Korean for “three stars.”) Samsung first entered the electronics industry in 1969 with several electronics-focused divisions. Their first products were black-and-white televisions. The late 1970s and early ’80s saw the rapid expansion of Samsung’s technology businesses. Separate semiconductor and electronics branches were established, and in 1978 an aerospace division was created.

Samsung Data Systems (now Samsung SDS) was established in 1985 to serve businesses’ growing need for systems development. That helped Samsung quickly become a leader in information technology services. Samsung also created two research and development institutes that broadened the company’s technology line into electronics, semiconductors, high-polymer chemicals, genetic engineering tools, telecommunications, aerospace, and nanotechnology.

Samsung is now one of the world’s largest producers of electronic devices. Samsung specializes in the production of a wide variety of consumer and industry electronics, including appliances, digital media devices, semiconductors, memory chips, and integrated systems. It has become one of the most-recognizable names in technology and produces about a fifth of South Korea’s total exports.