Another World’s First for Samsung: Samsung Itself
The New York Times in a recent article, describes the ascent of Samsung Electronics to the rank of world’s premiere gadget maker. Samsung, or ‘Three Stars’ as it’s known in Korea, has long strived for recognition as an innovator by developing products that can legitimately have the adjectives world’s & first attached to them. Some examples noted in these pages include the world’s first 5 and 10 megapixel camera phones, the first LED sourced DLP TV and world’s largest TV (at the time) at 102 inches. And now, thanks to having become world’s largest and most profitable consumer electronics company, the honorific of world’s first can not only be applied to some of Samsung’s products, but to the company itself … Samsung is now considering renaming itself to Sasung (4*) or even to Osung (5*) to properly reflect it’s new status.
Much if not most of the credit for Samsung’s performance can be attributed to Kun-Hee Lee, Chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics since 1998. He is famously quoted as saying “One genius can feed millions of others. For the upcoming era where creativity will be the most important driver of business success, we need to hire the best. The economic value of 1 genius is more than $1 billion” … which is probably self-referential, but almost certain to be true nevertheless. More info on Lee’s handiwork can be found at 2004 Samsung Electronics Annual Report … the EBIT is astounding at $12,583,438,000.
Some clouds on the Tristar horizon include Korea’s very low birth rate of 1.08, the eventual demise of the Lee dynasty, it’s massive outsourcing (US$18.5 billion in 2006) to China and the resulting increase in competition from China from the rapidly expanding consumer electronics industry in that country. China is expected to produce US$94 billion worth of gadgets in 2007, thanks largely to labor rates that are just 13.2% of that in Korea. One surmises that labor rates in China will start to normalize and that production will then shift to Vietnam and Indonesia and that Samsung Electronics will eventually be called Ilsung (One Star) Electronics.
Raising the Bar at Samsung - New York Times, April 25, 2006
