The Samsung Group is a South Korea-based conglomerate company that includes subsidiaries. It's one of the largest businesses in Korea, producing nearly one-fifth of the country's total exports with a primary focus on electronics, heavy industry, construction, and defense. Other major subsidiaries of Samsung include insurance, advertising, and entertainment businesses.

With only 30,000 won (about US$27), Lee Byung-chul started Samsung as a trading company based in a city called Taegu in what is now South Korea, in 1938. With only 40 employees, Samsung began as a grocery store, trading, and exporting goods produced in and around the city. It sold dried Korean fish and vegetables, as well as its own noodles.

The company grew and expanded to Seoul in 1947 but left when the Korean War broke out. Following the war, Lee started a sugar refinery in Busan before expanding into textiles and building what was, at the time, the largest woolen mill in Korea.

This early diversification became a successful growth strategy for Samsung, which rapidly expanded into the insurance, securities, and retail businesses. After the war, Samsung focused on the redevelopment of Korea, especially industrialization.