Samsung

Samsung is a South Korean multinational conglomerate founded in 1938 by Lee Byung-chul as a small trading company in Daegu that exported groceries and dried fish. Over the following decades the group diversified into textiles, insurance, retail and construction, and in 1969 it established Samsung Electronics, which would grow into one of the largest and most influential technology companies in the world. Samsung Electronics entered the mobile phone market in the 1990s, producing some of the earliest mass-market cellular handsets. The company quickly became a global leader in feature phones and was a pioneer of several form factors, including the first commercially successful flip phone and the first phone with a built-in digital camera. With the arrival of the smartphone era, Samsung positioned itself at the forefront of the industry. Its Galaxy S series, launched in 2010, became one of the best-selling Android smartphone lines in history, while the Galaxy Note family introduced the phablet category with large displays and S Pen stylus support. The Galaxy A and M series now serve the midrange and budget segments. Samsung is also one of the world's leading manufacturers of semiconductor chips, display panels and memory (DRAM and NAND), components it uses in its own devices and supplies to other brands. In recent years the company has pushed the boundaries of mobile design with its foldable Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip lines, and has integrated artificial intelligence features into its One UI software. Headquartered in Suwon, South Korea, Samsung Electronics remains a dominant force in the global smartphone market and a regular rival of Apple for the top position in annual handset shipments.