Word: samsungs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...discounting the South Koreans. In the past few years, several Korean companies, including Samsung, Goldstar and Daewoo, have successfully invaded America with television sets, videocassette recorders and even personal computers. Because wages are generally lower in South Korea than they are in either the U.S. or Japan, Korean products often sell for 25% less than their competition's. By offering attractive items at very low prices, the South Koreans may become the new Japanese. Says one Tokyo businessman: "Sometimes we see our spitting image in the Koreans, and we're downright afraid...
Price-conscious American consumers, though, are delighted. Robert Tout, a 29-year-old textile worker in Carlisle, Ky., owns a Samsung 19-in. color television set, which sells for about 50% less than a Sony of the same size. Says he: "I had no idea it was Korean when I bought it. It's good stuff." Though some consumers are wary of the quality of Korean imports, many others are impressed by the manufacturing standards. Jaclyn Jerabek, a research scientist at Columbus-based Battelle Memorial Institute, owns a Korean-made personal computer. Says she: "I made a good choice...
...first of several Korean companies that are eyeing the American market. Daewoo, a firm that is 50% owned by General Motors, hopes to be selling 80,000 cars in the U.S. in 1987. Kia, a Korean conglomerate, could link up with Ford, and Chrysler has held talks with Samsung, another firm with designs on the U.S. market. Maryann Keller, an auto-industry expert with Vilas-Fischer Assoc. in New York City, predicts that imports from such countries as South Korea, Taiwan, Mexico and Brazil will one day control the important U.S. market...
Other coups followed as B.C. moved into real estate speculation and sake brewing. In 1952, he decided that South Korea "could only prosper through trade." He set up his Samsung (Three Star) export-import company to do just that, and the firm quickly provided profits that Lee shrewdly invested in other ventures. Now Samsung is the umbrella of a 17-company conglomerate that includes Seoul's finest department store, one of its largest newspapers, a group of sugar refineries, paper factories and an electronics firm. Together they rang up sales of $731.9 million last year...
...success is an iron demand for efficiency. A decade ago, B.C. shocked family-conscious Koreans by abruptly firing two of his three sons who were Samsung managers. "They were not fit to hold executive positions," he explains. "The life of a man is short, but that of a corporation must never be." To keep his companies healthy, Lee keeps them lean. When he started the afternoon newspaper Joongang Ilbo (current circ. 680,000) in 1965, he built up a talented staff of 1,400. Today Joongang has expanded into radio and TV, but still employs only 1,400 people...