Key takeaways
- Founded in 1938 as a trading company; Samsung Electronics was set up in 1969 with no semiconductor industry to speak of.
- A near-fatal 1974 bet on chips led to South Korea’s first 64K DRAM (1983) and the world’s number-one DRAM position by 1992, never surrendered since.
- It surpassed Intel in annual chip revenue in 2017, the first non-American company atop the table in 25 years.
- After losing the 3nm and HBM races to TSMC and SK Hynix, its 12-Hi HBM3E finally qualified at NVIDIA in September 2025, and it is expanding capex 50% to return.
- 1938 Lee Byung-chul founds Samsung as a small trading company exporting dried fish from Korea to China.
- 1969 Samsung Electronics is established in a country just emerging from war, with no semiconductor industry of its own.
- 1974 Lee Byung-chul pours Samsung’s cash into chips by acquiring Korea Semiconductor, a bet that nearly ends the company.
- 1983 Samsung produces South Korea’s first 64K DRAM, defying experts who said a Korean firm could not win in memory.
- 1992 It becomes the world’s number-one DRAM manufacturer, a position it has not surrendered since.
- 1993 Lee Kun-hee delivers the Frankfurt Declaration, “change everything except your wife and children”, launching a complete quality and management overhaul.
- 1998 Samsung introduces the world’s first 128MB DRAM, and later the first 1GB DRAM.
- 2002 It surpasses Sony in market capitalisation, signalling a new Asian electronics order.
- 2010 The Galaxy era begins; within five years Samsung is the world’s largest smartphone maker.
- 2017 It surpasses Intel in annual semiconductor revenue, the first non-American company at the top in 25 years.
- 2019 Samsung enters the foundry race aggressively with 7nm EUV, targeting TSMC’s leading customers.
- 2020–2024 It loses the 3nm and 2nm races to TSMC, and its foundry bets do not deliver the expected wins.
- 2024 Its HBM3E memory repeatedly fails qualification at NVIDIA, and SK Hynix takes the entire 12-Hi business for 18 months.
- Sep 2025 Samsung’s 12-Hi HBM3E finally qualifies at NVIDIA for the GB300 platform.
- 2026 A 50% capex expansion is confirmed as Samsung returns to the HBM race.
Few corporate stories run as long as Samsung’s, and even fewer run on its scale. In under a century it went from exporting dried fish to leading the world in memory chips, from follower to leader and, in the AI era, briefly back to follower again. Every cycle pulled it out of its comfort zone, and every cycle ended with Samsung still on the table. Here is the journey, year by year.
The pattern is the point
From dried fish to DRAM, from DRAM to HBM, from follower to leader to follower and back, all inside one century. Every cycle took Samsung out of its comfort zone, and every cycle ended with it still standing among the handful of companies that matter. The scale and the longevity together are what make the story almost unique in global business.
