Which company was founded by Lee Byung-chul in 1938 as a trading company? The answer is Samsung.
Lee Byung-chul founded Samsung in Daegu on March 1, 1938, as Samsung Trading Company, commonly known as Samsung Sanghoe. It began as a small trading business with about 40 employees, dealing in dried fish, locally grown groceries and noodles. The name Samsung is commonly explained as meaning “three stars,” a symbol associated with strength, size and permanence.
Samsung’s early identity was very different from the electronics brand known today. Lee moved the head office to Seoul in 1947, but the Korean War forced him to relocate to Busan. The company survived by adapting its trading operations and later expanded into food processing, textiles, insurance, securities and retail.
Samsung entered electronics in the late 1960s, and its first product in that field was a black-and-white television. Electronics, construction and shipbuilding became major growth areas in the following decades. A common mix-up is treating Samsung Electronics as the original company: Samsung Electronics is a major affiliate founded later, while the 1938 trading business was the foundation of Samsung Group.