There is a tremendous convergence under way right across the electronics spectrum, and Samsung Electronics is providing the ways to make this happen. Samsung is a major player in the communications, consumer electronics and information systems markets. Integration of television, telecommunications, computers and multi-media technology will offer customers a host of services like home shopping, home banking and eventually home automation. Research and development is the driving force behind Samsung Electronics. The company’s vast R&D resources, which involve 13,000 research scientists and engineers in 63 countries, including Australia, have already produced breakthroughs like the world’s fastest microprocessor and smallest CDMA mobile phone. This policy is not only a long-term one. It has already enabled Samsung to reach market-leading positions in many countries around the world. In Australia, Samsung is number one in colour monitors. In Europe, the company sells more microwave ovens than any other manufacturer. And Samsung makes more computer memory chips than any other company in the world.
	Creating and establishing the Samsung brand in this country in such a short time ranks as the greatest achievement of Samsung Australia. The company has the sort of image that took other electronics companies three decades to establish; amazingly enough, most of Samsung’s success with this has come in only the last two years. Today, Samsung’s products are bought for their value, not their price. Samsung has won more than 60 major awards around the world in less than a year. The SyncMaster monitors have won awards in every market in which they are available, including the Energy Star, awarded by America’s Environmental Protection Agency. Samsung won this over all other office automation products. In Australia, the company has received awards from PC Magazine, PC World, Windows Source, Publishing Essentials and Australian Personal Computer.
	The company began as the Samsung Trading Company more than 60 years ago, as an exporter of foodstuffs from Korea to China. The business grew rapidly, but the Korean War destroyed the company’s operations. Undaunted, management relaunched Samsung in 1951 with the philosophy of importing raw materials, processing them through advanced technology and then exporting them. In 1996, Samsung was the largest trading company in Korea with unconsolidated revenues of $US92.7 billion. Today, the Samsung Group is made up of 35 business entities worth $US108 billion. The group makes everything “from (computer) chips to ships.” Samsung Electronics Australia is a significant part of this group. It has developed a broad range distribution model, providing consumer products through most major retail stores and IT products through an extensive wholesale and Reseller channel. The company also does a substantial amount of R&D work in Australia, spending for example some $30 million a year on developing switching software for telephone exchanges. Samsung Electronics came to Australia in 1987. By 1999, the company will have achieved an annual turnover of more than $200 million. Samsung is the fastest-growing electronic company in Australia. Samsung has demonstrated a major commitment to the communities in which it operates, demonstrating the corporate culture which is founded on the philosophy of doing good for others.  At one extreme, the company is the sole official sponsor of the Nobel Prize acknowledging the truly brilliant minds of our time and their contribution to a better life for everyone. At the other, Samsung Electronics Australia encourages employees to take part in volunteer work by providing awards, financial support, insurance and up to seven days’ paid leave a year while taking part in volunteer work.
	Samsung Electronics makes a vast range of products across its market categories. All of them are highly advanced electronically, and all benefit from Samsung’s vast research and development effort. In communications, the company leads in the production of data networks using asynchronous transfer mode. This allows voice, data and video to be sent on a single line as opposed to needing three different networks. Large and small PABX telephone systems are covered, too, as are telephone handsets, pagers and facsimile machines. Samsung is also a leading supplier of infrastructure equipment for such cutting-edge systems as Telstra’s new CDMA network. Mobile handsets for this and for GSM are also in the product lineup. Another aspect of communications is an excellent example of Samsung’s product integration.  The company is one of the world’s largest suppliers of video equipment for the security industry. The product range includes all the security hardware including cameras, video recorders and networks, as well as the capability to analyse, show, communicate and manipulate videos in any way at all. Samsung produces a very wide range of consumer electronics. This includes refrigerators, washing machines, audio and video equipment, television sets  (both CRT and projection-based), microwave ovens, air conditioners and a range of other domestic appliances. Information systems products range from memory - Samsung is the world’s largest manufacturer of D-Ram computer memory chips - through hard disk drives and CD ROMs to monitors. Samsung is the world’s largest manufacturer of colour picture tubes and television monitors. Through affiliate Samsung Corning, the company produces a special kind of wide-screen picture tube glass, made in ever-increasing sizes.
	Samsung’s growth has been accelerating, both in market penetration and in brand strength. Major recent advances in communication products have allowed Samsung Australia to capture a 20 per cent market share in PABX systems with up to 400 telephones. In December 1998, a US$210 million deal negotiated by management with Hutchison Communications puts the Australian Samsung team at the forefront of the introduction of CDMA communications to this country. This will create hundreds of new job opportunities as the infrastructure is put into place. Additionally, the company now has the major market share in rear projection television systems for home theatre. It is also revolutionising the home entertainment market with innovative, larger television screens offering an additional inch of picture area. The most exciting development, though, is the increase in technology integration. Eventually, the fully integrated house will enable Samsung’s customers to ring home and switch on the microwave to heat the meal they placed there in the morning; change the settings of the freezer so the champagne is at exactly the right temperature; activate their favourite music; adjust the air conditioning; in effect, set exactly the mood they want to walk into when they come home. A little further along, and customers will able to choose the works of art they display on their 52 inch LCD wall-mounted flat television screens, when they are not watching a program. Matisse today, Rembrandt tomorrow. Samsung will provide an absolute experience.
	The Samsung brand is promoted with a three-pronged strategy: radio, television and sports sponsorship. John Laws must rate as the radio personality with the highest profile in Australia. He has been Samsung’s “number one promotional ally”, as Samsung’s MD put it, and the promotions he does for the company have been highly successful. Samsung has a sizeable presence on television, both with advertising and as a result of local and worldwide sports sponsorship. The company sponsors the Nations Cup in Europe, one the world’s premier equestrian events, which receives a great deal of television exposure there. Several European soccer clubs are also sponsored by Samsung, and yield appropriate exposure. The company also has a long-term sponsorship of the Olympics, beginning as the supplier of wireless communications at the Nagano winter games. This involvement will continue with the Sydney 2000 Games and the three Olympics following that. But it is the company’s sponsorship of AFL club Hawthorn that has produced the most outstanding results. It has resulted in a huge brand equity lift in Melbourne and other AFL centres including Adelaide and Perth. The club and the code are excellent ambassadors for Samsung.
	Absolute value, absolute quality and absolute service are the vital ingredients of Samsung’s brand values in Australia. Over the next few years, the company will be providing those concepts as a total experience, not just as individual products. Integration will change the face of the electronics industry. Samsung is an R&D driven company. Products are researched, designed, manufactured and then marketed, in that order. Technical excellence and innovation are matched by perpetual renewal and ever-increasing quality, versatility and above all value for the customer.

SAMSUNG
		The Samsung group makes everything “from (computer) chips to ships.”
		Samsung is the sole official sponsor of the Nobel Prize acknowledging the truly brilliant minds of our time.
		Samsung is the world’s largest manufacturer of D-Ram computer memory chips.
		In Australia, Samsung is number one in colour monitors.