13 Mind Blowing Facts About Samsung

j.k shin samsung ceo in charge of mobile
REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Samsung's success is somewhat mystifying as it runs contrary to the style of success and failure we've witnessed over the last ten years.

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The most successful company of the last ten years is Apple, a company defined by its innovation and focus on a handful of products.

Samsung, by contrast, will copy anything and everything. It also manufactures a lot of stuff.

We've also witnessed a slow unwind of mega-corporations. GE was hit hard during the financial crisis, and has slowed its expansion into new business lines.

Samsung, on the other hand, makes skyscrapers, big ships, smartphones, TVs, and refrigerators, to name a few items.

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Using the company's reports, information in Businessweek's story on Samsung, and other sources, we've put together this slideshow to show how sprawling and diverse Samsung really is.

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Samsung has been around since 1938. The Samsung Group is made up of 80 different businesses...

samsung chairman Lee Kun Hee
REUTERS/Steve Marcus

Samsung's construction division built the Burj Khalifa, which is the tallest building in the world.

Burj Khalifa UAE
Copyright Axel Schmies
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Samsung's Heavy Industries builds ships in a 4 million square foot shipyard

samsung shipyard
Samsung

Samsung Electronics has 370,000 employees worldwide. (Apple has 80,000. Microsoft has 97,106. GE has 305,000.)

samsung employee
REUTERS/Samsung Electronics
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Samsung says it paid those employees 14.5 billion won, or $12 billion.

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Samsung

Samsung accounts for 17 percent of Korea's Gross Domestic Product

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Arne Hendriks via Flickr
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Samsung spent over $4 billion in advertising last year, plus an additional $5 billion in marketing. Its ad budget dwarfs everyone else.

Chart of the day shows advertising spending by apple, samsung, microsoft, dell and coca cola, april 2013
Asymco

Samsung's net sales for 2011 were $247 billion. Samsung's electronics division sales were $179 billion. In calendar 2011, Apple did $127.8 billion in sales.

models holding samsung galaxy s iii
REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won
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Samsung Electronics' profit last quarter was $8.27 billion, much of it from smartphones. For comparison, Google's operating profit last quarter was $3.4 billion.

samsung operating profits chart of the day
Business Insider

Samsung shipped 215.8 million smartphones last year, which is more than the next three smartphone sellers COMBINED.

sasung shipments idc
IDC
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Samsung lists 145 products on its web site under the "cell phones" category. (Apple has three phones in two different colors.)

Samsung phones
Samsung

Samsung has been the top selling TV maker in the world for six straight years.

samsung f8500
Samsung
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BONUS: Samsung's chairman went on a three day rant, and it defined the company.

samsung
REUTERS/Albert Gea

Samsung became Samsung after its chairman went on a three day rant to his hundreds of executives in a German hotel conference room. Samsung took his speech, turned it into a book about management and used it as its guiding principles from there on in.

Now, for what Samsung's rival is up to ...

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