11 rare facts about Samsung you don't know?

Samsung is today India’s leading mobile handset brand. With devices spread across wide price points and feature packed premium devices, Samsung has one ready for anybody who wants a smartphone.

Its immediate goal in the mobile device segment was to gaining a lead over Nokia that depended on feature based phones and Apple iphones that targeted great phones for premium segment. Sammy competed with them and carved its way to the top. Samsung was there to break their popularity with low-cost wide range of smartphones to fit every pocket.

Did you know Sammy started with just 40 people in 1938 in South Korea? Gradually, the company climbed the ladder up in almost all segments of consumer electronics. From TV, refrigerator to mobile phones and kitchen utility gadgets- Samsung forayed successfully into the gadgets arena.

We are going to share 11 rare and interesting facts about this Korean competitive company today. Go to the next page and read these unknown facts about Sammy, and check your information.

Sold noodles, fishes and vegetables

The company when founded dealt in groceries produced in and around the city and also produced its own noodles. It also was selling fish, vegetables, and fruit to China. 

Samsung Sanghoe company was formed by a large landowning family in the Uiryeong county as a small trading company in Su-dong (now Ingyo-dong).

Change everything except your wife and kids

In early 1990s, Samsung was believed to be focusing on producing low-quality goods and it thought as not prepared to compete in quality.

Its Chairman Lee Kun-hee in 1993 said "Change everything except your wife and kids". He reformed the Korean culture that pervaded Samsung and brought foreign employees in and transferred local employees were outside Korea, and started fostering an international attitude in Samsung.

Destroyed 1.5 lakh Samsung products in 1995

Chairman Lee Kun-hee was not satisfied with Samsung products. In 1995 he wanted to get his employees better understand the importance of quality. He had his staff assemble about 1,50,000 phone and fax machines. In front of about 2000 employees he ordered the old devices to be destroyed, ushering in a new era centered around product quality.

Made the lightest phone ever in 1993

In 1993 Samsung developed the 'lightest' mobile phone of its era. The SCH-800 and it was available on CDMA networks.

In 1999 it introduced the first phone with tuner DMB , to watch TV from it on a 1.8 inch TFT display screen.

Own manufacturing

90 percent of Samsung products are manufactured in Samsung’s own factories. Since year 1938 Samsung has laid hands on at least 80 different kinds of businesses.

Car phone that failed

Samsung’s first-ever mobile device was a built-in car phone in 1986, the SC-100. This device was a failure due to the poor quality.  He asked the company to buy ten Motorola mobile phones for benchmarking. After 2 years of R&D Samsung developed its first mobile phone (or "hand phone" in Korea), the SH-100 in 1988.

Fighting with the leader

Samsung went to the top and contested with the leader offering premium handsets. It was involved in a list of patent battles with Apple and others as it made way to the top. Last year in 2012 it was asked to pay USD 1.05 billion in damages for violating six of Apple patents.

But in the in-filed battle Samsung was indeed chosen a winner by people, as more and more people perefrred Android handsets.

Charged for poor working conditions 

The Ministry of labour in Brazil this year has filed a lawsuit against Samsung alleging poor working conditions for workers at the company’s Amazon factory. IN the legal case more than USD100 million is being demanded as compensation. “The Ministry of Labor said employees at the factory worked up to 15 hours a day, including 10 hours on their feet, and sometimes for 27 days straight” reported msn in a news report.

Toxic leaks

This year in the first quarter, hydrofluoric acid at Samsung Electronics’ main chip making plant in Hwaseong leaked. One worker was killed in the event. A month later toxic chlorine gas leaked at a Samsung chemical factory in South Korea. This affected 11 workers who were hospitalised and forced the evacuation of residents living nearby.

Human cost into devices

Poor working condition has been described my a few reports in news. “QTS, a Samsung contractor, does not allow workers to open windows at their workplaces to protect the trade secret of Samsung, even though their shops are poorly ventilated,” Kong Jeong-ok, a physician with SHARPS said at the conference on the conditions of workers at Samsung’s contractors hosted by SHARPS in Seoul, says a stopsamsung website.

Galaxy blasts

For 18-year-old Fanny Schlatter owning a Galaxy S3 is nothing less than a nightmare now. She was loading paint cans into her boss' truck, when her smartphone exploded in her trousers. She has sustained second and third degree burns on her thigh that were severe enough.