Tôi tìm hiểu về công ty Samsung để bạn không phải làm

Samsung is a corporation that is already extremely familiar to the lives of Vietnamese people. From the phones we hold in our hands to TVs and refrigerators, they manufacture them all. In the second quarter of 2026, their profits exceeded the total profits of the entire year of 2025 combined. It’s not just a 10% increase, or even double; it is one quarter equaling an entire year's worth of profit. And what helped Samsung achieve this wasn't a best-selling TV, but a small piece of silicon deep inside an AI server that I’ve never even seen before. Welcome back to our series where we analyze 300 businesses so you don't have to. And today, we will look back at the entire process of Samsung's formation and development to see how they became the industrial empire they are today. As always, our video content is synthesized and gathered from many sources, so if anything is wrong or needs correction, please comment below. Note that this video content is for analysis and informational purposes only, not investment advice. Every decision to buy or sell stocks should be based on an assessment of individual risk appetite and should consult a licensed advisor. But before we get into it, you can head to CellphoneS to check out the Redmi Note 17 Pro Max in the near-premium segment, which has just launched with a special price of around 16 million VND for the standard 512GB version. What impresses me most is the massive 10,000 mAh battery paired with 100W ultra-fast charging. You can confidently use the phone comfortably for three days and three nights straight. When you need it, plugging it in for 2 hours gets it fully charged. It doesn't stop there; the device maintains its signature durability with IP69 dust and water resistance and Gorilla Glass Victus 2, resistant to drops from 3 meters, so you don't have to worry when you drop your phone. In addition, there is the Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 chip, a sharp 6.83-inch AMOLED screen, and an impressively stable 50-megapixel dual camera system with OIS. And if you already like it but your budget is tight, you can head to any of the 180 CellphoneS stores to take advantage of the 3-zero installment offer: zero interest, zero extra fees, and zero down payment. If you are a student, you get an additional 5% discount at Excident. I will leave the link in the description and comments section. Unlike the stories of Nvidia or SpaceX, Samsung started out with dried fish, vegetables, and noodles. On March 1, 1938, a man named Lee Byung-chul opened a small trading store in Daegu called Samsung Sanghoe, meaning "three stars," with 40 employees. The business at that time was very simple. Compared to what Samsung would do later, they just bought local dried fish, vegetables, and noodles to export to Manchuria and Beijing. In 1950, the Korean War broke out and almost wiped out everything he had built. By August of that year, the Southern forces only held a small corner in the Pusan Perimeter, and the entire peninsula had nearly fallen to the North. But it was precisely from these ruins that Lee saw an opportunity and founded two companies, one for sugar production and one for textiles. But wait, in such a war-torn context, where did he get the money to start two companies, and even buy a sugar refinery? The answer is a $600,000 aid package from the US government and a 58.3 million won loan from the Korea Development Bank. This was the move that first shaped Samsung. It wasn't about creating something new, but seizing the moment when the country was desperate, making basic necessities like sugar and clothing scarce. And at that time, there were almost no businesses competing with Lee, so this was a period when Samsung grew very rapidly. I was quite curious about where he got so much capital from. $600,000 in 1950 was a truly massive amount. I don't know if Lee lobbied the government, but they were one of the companies the government chose to entrust with credit and foreign currency for development. When I looked into it further, it seems that even his parents were already wealthy landowners in Korea. With a family background like that, it is highly likely he inherited many government connections, along with money and a strategic mindset. So, it is easy to understand why he received preferential treatment from the government. Accumulated over that decade, Samsung's total debt reached 5.3 billion won, the fourth highest among all the nation's chaebols. Combined with the money earned from their textile and sugar companies, Samsung sat on a mountain of cash and began acquiring other businesses. They bought an insurance company in 1958 and even purchased an entire bank in 1957. They even managed to buy a bank. However, this was a period when Samsung did not yet have any high-tech products like those we see today. To be more precise, all of South Korea did not have them yet. In 1961, General Park Chung-hee seized power in a coup and publicly declared he would punish corporations that enriched themselves illicitly after the war, which sounded like a nightmare for Samsung, but the reality turned out to be the complete opposite. Instead of dismantling the chaebols, Park entrusted Samsung, Hyundai, LG, and SK with the most important mission of the industrialization era: bringing Korean-made goods to the world. In exchange, the government provided them with cheap steel, a series of subsidies, preferential credit, and massive tax incentives. And amidst this period of miraculous growth, Samsung decided to venture into a new field: electronics. In early 1969, Samsung Electronics was born. They recruited the first 137 trainees and sent them to Japan to learn manufacturing technology for electronics such as radios, televisions, and transformers. Just three years later, by 1972, Samsung launched its first domestically branded black-and-white television. That is pretty surreal. It only took three years and a few dozen staff members training in Japan before they could build a TV themselves. This was a product that could be considered high-tech at that time. From my research, as early as 1970, which is one year after Samsung Electronics was founded, there were already black-and-white televisions under other brands produced and sold on the market by Samsung. More precisely, it was due to a joint venture Samsung formed with Japan's Sanyo Electric and Sumitomo. The technology was licensed from Sanyo, so I think it's undeniable that Samsung-branded TVs at the time were essentially Japanese products with just a label change. However, whether through joint ventures or self-production, having such high-tech products helped Samsung's business boom during this period. But it didn't boom as much as their gamble on the semiconductor industry. In the 1970s, Lee Kun-hee, the son of Samsung's chairman, spent $500,000 of his own money to buy a 50% stake in the nearly bankrupt Korea Semiconductor, and acquired the remaining half in 1977. When Samsung first acquired the company, they didn't focus on immediate production but instead poured money into DRAM research. At the time, this was considered a reckless gamble for Samsung because DRAM was an extremely capital-intensive industry. The technology was also difficult for a developing country like South Korea to master. The market was dominated by Japanese firms like Toshiba. Yet, Samsung pulled it off; nine years later, in 1992, that gamble yielded results that had seemed impossible for Samsung. They became the world's largest DRAM memory chip manufacturer. From someone who had to learn technology from Japan, Samsung turned the tables and took the lead position from them. Around this same time, in 1995, Samsung developed its first LCD screen and eventually became the world's largest LCD manufacturer. And once again in the 90s, Samsung's mobile phone brand, Anycall, was born and dominated the domestic Korean market. It can be seen that during this period, Samsung grew extremely fast, continuously launching successful h

profits of the entire year of 2025 combined. It’s not just a 10%increase , or even double; it is one quarter equaling an entire year's worth of profit. And what helped Samsung achieve this wasn't a best-selling TV, but a

small piece of silicon deep inside an AI server that I’ve never even seen before. Welcome back to our series where we analyze 300 businesses so you don't have to. And today, we will look back at the entire process of Samsung's

formation and development to see how they became the industrial empire they are today. As always, our video content is synthesized and gathered from many sources, so if anything is wrong or needs correction, please comment below.

Note that this video content is for analysis and informational purposes only, not investment advice. Every decision to buy or sell stocks should be based on an assessment of individual risk appetite and should consult a licensed advisor. But before we get

into it, you can head to CellphoneS to check out the Redmi Note 17 Pro Max in the near-premium segment, which has just launched with a special price of around 16 million VND for the standard 512GB version. What impresses me most

is the massive 10,000 mAh battery paired with 100W ultra-fast charging. You can confidently use the phone comfortably for three days and three nights straight. When you need it, plugging it in for 2 hours gets it fully charged. It doesn't stop there;

the device maintains its signature durability with IP69 dust and water resistance and Gorilla Glass Victus 2, resistant to drops from 3 meters, so you don't have to worry when you drop your phone. In addition, there is the Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 chip, a sharp 6.83-

inch AMOLED screen, and an impressively stable 50-megapixel dual camera system with OIS. And if you already like it but your budget is tight, you can head to any of the 180 CellphoneS stores to take advantage of the 3-zero

installment offer: zero interest, zero extra fees, and zero down payment. If you are a student, you get an additional 5%discount at Excident. I will leave the link in the description and comments section. Unlike the stories of Nvidia or SpaceX, Samsung

started out with dried fish, vegetables , and noodles. On March 1, 1938, a man named Lee Byung-chul opened a small trading store in Daegu called Samsung Sanghoe, meaning "three stars," with 40 employees. The business at that time was very simple. Compared to what

Samsung would do later, they just bought local dried fish, vegetables, and noodles to export to Manchuria and Beijing. In 1950, the Korean War broke out and almost wiped out everything he had built. By August of that year, the

Southern forces only held a small corner in the Pusan Perimeter, and the entire peninsula had nearly fallen to the North. But it was precisely from these ruins that Lee saw an opportunity and founded two companies, one for sugar production and one for textiles.

But wait, in such a war-torn context, where did he get the money to start two companies, and even buy a sugar refinery? The answer is a $ 600,000 aid package from the US government and a 58.3 million won loan from the Korea

Development Bank. This was the move that first shaped Samsung. It wasn't about creating something new, but seizing the moment when the country was desperate, making basic necessities like sugar and clothing scarce. And at that time, there were almost no

businesses competing with Lee, so this was a period when Samsung grew very rapidly. I was quite curious about where he got so much capital from. $ 600,000 in 1950 was a truly massive amount. I don't know if Lee lobbied the

government, but they were one of the companies the government chose to entrust with credit and foreign currency for development. When I looked into it further, it seems that even his parents were already wealthy landowners in Korea. With a family background like

that, it is highly likely he inherited many government connections, along with money and a strategic mindset. So, it is easy to understand why he received preferential treatment from the government. Accumulated over that decade, Samsung's total debt reached 5.3 billion won, the fourth highest

among all the nation's chaebols. Combined with the money earned from their textile and sugar companies, Samsung sat on a mountain of cash and began acquiring other businesses. They bought an insurance company in 1958 and even purchased an entire bank in 1957.

They even managed to buy a bank. However, this was a period when Samsung did not yet have any high-tech products like those we see today. To be more precise, all of South Korea did not have them yet. In 1961, General Park

Chung-hee seized power in a coup and publicly declared he would punish corporations that enriched themselves illicitly after the war, which sounded like a nightmare for Samsung, but the reality turned out to be the complete opposite. Instead of dismantling the

chaebols, Park entrusted Samsung, Hyundai, LG, and SK with the most important mission of the industrialization era: bringing Korean-made goods to the world. In exchange, the government provided them with cheap steel, a series of subsidies , preferential credit, and massive tax

incentives. And amidst this period of miraculous growth, Samsung decided to venture into a new field: electronics.

In early 1969, Samsung Electronics was born. They recruited the first 137 trainees and sent them to Japan to learn manufacturing technology for electronics such as radios, televisions , and transformers. Just three years later, by 1972, Samsung launched its

first domestically branded black-and-white television. That is pretty surreal. It only took three years and a few dozen staff members training in Japan before they could build a TV themselves. This was a product that could be considered high-tech at that time. From my

research, as early as 1970, which is one year after Samsung Electronics was founded, there were already black-and-white televisions under other brands produced and sold on the market by Samsung. More precisely, it was due to a joint venture Samsung formed with

Japan's Sanyo Electric and Sumitomo. The technology was licensed from Sanyo, so I think it's undeniable that Samsung-branded TVs at the time were essentially Japanese products with just a label change. However, whether through joint ventures or self-production, having such high-tech

products helped Samsung's business boom during this period. But it didn't boom as much as their gamble on the semiconductor industry. In the 1970s, Lee Kun-hee, the son of Samsung's chairman, spent $ 500,000 of his own money to buy a 50%stake in the nearly

bankrupt Korea Semiconductor, and acquired the remaining half in 1977. When Samsung first acquired the company , they didn't focus on immediate production but instead poured money into DRAM research. At the time, this was considered a reckless gamble for

Samsung because DRAM was an extremely capital-intensive industry. The technology was also difficult for a developing country like South Korea to master. The market was dominated by Japanese firms like Toshiba. Yet, Samsung pulled it off; nine years later , in 1992, that gamble yielded results

that had seemed impossible for Samsung. They became the world's largest DRAM memory chip manufacturer. From someone who had to learn technology from Japan, Samsung turned the tables and took the lead position from them. Around this same time, in 1995, Samsung developed

its first LCD screen and eventually became the world's largest LCD manufacturer. And once again in the 90s , Samsung's mobile phone brand, Anycall , was born and dominated the domestic Korean market. It can be seen that during this period, Samsung grew

extremely fast, continuously launching successful high-tech products. Until the 1997 Asian financial crisis struck, which exposed the strained financial situation of Korean chaebols, with the average debt-to-equity ratio of Korea's 30 largest chaebols reaching five times . This is the price of an economy that

bet too much on too few companies, borrowing recklessly to expand at any cost. The Daewoo Group, one of the largest chaebols in South Korea at the time, went bankrupt during that crisis.

That includes the Daewoo Hotel over on Dao Tan street. And Samsung was no exception. Their automotive division, Samsung Motors, launched its first car right during the 1998 crisis, and just two years later, Samsung was forced to hand over control to the French

automaker Renault. This was one of the few times Samsung made the wrong bet on an industry. Moving into the 21st century, Samsung had another successful bet called the smartphone. In June 2010 , Samsung launched the first generation Galaxy S phone. Less than two years

later, Samsung officially surpassed Nokia to become the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer. Of course, this is calculated by the number of phones sold. Meaning both the feature phone and smartphone segments. If you're wondering where Apple was at this time, Apple hadn't entered every

mobile front; they were only selling smartphones. There was no standard feature phone segment for them. And in reality, that's still the case today.

But if you change the measurement criteria to revenue and profit, the story is completely different. By the end of 2011, Apple alone accounted for about 40%of total revenue and at times reached about 75%of total operating profit for the entire global mobile

industry, despite only accounting for about 9%of total global unit sales. So, Samsung won in terms of units sold, but Apple was the one making the most money in the entire mobile industry. And just when everything seemed perfect, as

Samsung's revenue grew rapidly from $ 134 billion in 2010 to $ 211 billion in 2012, they encountered what could be called the biggest crisis in the phone industry. That was in August 2016, when the batteries of the Galaxy Note 7

began to spontaneously catch fire and even explode in the hands of users all over the world. The initial estimate for the recall of these 2.5 million devices was around $ 1 billion. But when the situation became uncontrollable, Samsung was forced to

do something unprecedented for a flagship phone line: completely discontinue the product on October 11 of that same year. The damage from this event was estimated by Samsung itself to be around 5.3 billion dollars in profit. To put it into perspective, in

its peak year of 2013, Samsung made a profit of about 35 billion dollars. Meaning this event wiped out about 15% of Samsung's annual profit, a massive figure for any company. But, in 2016, despite facing such a crisis, Samsung's

pre-tax profit still increased by 17% compared to the previous year. Thanks to the components and semiconductor divisions carrying the mobile division.

After closing the period of strong growth driven by mobile phones, Samsung entered a new cycle with the semiconductor industry. This is what leads us to the story of how the company makes money today. First, let's take a look at an overview of their

revenue structure. First is Samsung Electronics, the largest publicly traded company and the most familiar face when mentioning Samsung. They divide their business operations into three main segments, including DS, which stands for Device Solutions, the semiconductor division. The semiconductor division consists of

three smaller branches: Memory, which produces DRAM, NAND, and especially HBM . The high-bandwidth memory chip type specifically for AI, which we will discuss in more detail later. System LSI designs processing chips like the Exynos line that we often see in

Samsung tech review videos. And finally , Foundry, or the operation of manufacturing chips for external clients. Their second business segment is SDC, or Samsung Display, which produces OLED and LCD screens. Third is MX and Networks, which is the operation

of manufacturing Galaxy phones, as well as things like watches and tablets. And fourth is Visual Display and digital appliances, such as TVs, refrigerators, and washing machines. Additionally, there is also Harman. That Harman Kardon—if you buy certain Asus laptops, you will see the Harman Kardon

logo on the machine. The first interesting point in this structure is that the division generating the most revenue is not always the division generating the most profit. For example , in their Q4 2025 financial results, the entire company reached a revenue of

nearly 94 trillion won. Manufacturing and selling Galaxy devices, such as phones and watches, brought in the most revenue. However, the operating profit for this segment was almost non-existent, at only about 1.3 trillion won. By Q2 2026, this operation even recorded a negative

profit. On the flip side, their chip manufacturing business brought in the majority, if not all, of the group's profit. Looking back at the years prior , specifically at the start of 2023, the semiconductor division they are currently proud of was actually

suffering heavy losses. In Q1 2023 alone, this division lost up to 3.4 billion dollars. But just three years later, everything had changed rapidly.

While Google or Amazon have relatively stable revenue and profit because their operations primarily come from monthly subscription fees, Samsung has a model of building factories for large-scale DRAM and HBM production. They then sell products at market prices dictated by

supply and demand, rather than prices Samsung sets themselves like when selling a branded phone. Where their product prices can double or triple in a single quarter or drop below the cost price after just a few months, that is

the logic of the commodities market. But is this really the case? Most likely not. Because on June 25th and 26th of this year, a group of 17 plaintiffs sued Samsung Electronics along with SK Hynix and Micron.

Accusing them of cutting production of older RAM products to drive prices up by over 700%in just four years. The reason the three companies gave for the production cuts was a change in strategy. They shifted to producing HBM , a type of memory for AI that has

higher profit margins. As of now, there has been no conclusion from the court on whether Samsung and the two other companies manipulated prices. But setting aside the question of right or wrong, in a perfectly competitive market with hundreds of small sellers,

no one has enough power to influence prices, so the market price depends entirely on supply and demand at any given time. However, the DRAM market is a fairly concentrated one. As I mentioned earlier, three major companies already account for 90%of the

market share. So, a change in production output by just one company is enough to impact prices. Not to mention that these three are also accused of collusion. Although there is no final court ruling yet, I think there is some basis to it, because this

rise in RAM prices has helped Samsung rake in a massive profit. Specifically, in the first quarter of 2026, the group's operating profit reached 57 trillion Won, equivalent to 39 billion dollars, matching Samsung's total profit for the entire year of 2025.

That's truly ruthless. And this upward trend hasn't even stopped yet. According to Samsung's management, their order fulfillment rate remains at a record low because customers are pushing up orders for 2027 out of fear of a prolonged supply shortage. In

other words, at this very moment, the demand for memory is far exceeding what Samsung and the entire global semiconductor industry can produce.

Even though the memory segment is so successful, Samsung still has a weakness in the high-tech sector, which is the Foundry business. This is a contract chip manufacturing model. For example, chip design companies like Qualcomm, Nvidia, or Tesla do not build

their own factories but instead hire professional foundries to manufacture according to their designs. Samsung Foundry and Taiwan's TSMC together account for over 80%of the global chip manufacturing market share. In terms of characteristics, it is exactly the same as the garment industry in Vietnam.

Major global sports brands design clothes and designate material suppliers, and then it is the job of Vietnamese businesses to buy the materials, hire labor to sew and produce, and export the finished products back to the US. So, as you can

see, even Samsung does contract work, but their contract work is of very high quality. I think a significant barrier for Vietnam when participating in the production of these types of products is simply the quality of the workforce.

Back to Samsung, although they and TSMC hold about 80%of the chip manufacturing market share, the gap between the two is still quite large. Because TSMC alone holds over 70%of the market share for the most advanced technologies, such as sub-5 nanometer processes, and

almost monopolizes all of Apple’s orders along with most of Nvidia’s orders. And the consequence of being second in an industry that requires massive capital investment is financial losses. In the second quarter of 2025, the operating profit of the

semiconductor division as a whole only reached 400 billion won, much lower than the analysts 'forecast of about 2.7 trillion won. This is largely due to the foundry division bearing the losses. This is a sector where the more you invest without having enough

customers to fill capacity, the heavier the losses. However, there is still an opportunity regarding geopolitics, as more and more major tech companies are adopting a multi-sourcing strategy to mitigate the risk of relying entirely on a single supplier, TSMC. Because

TSMC is based in Taiwan, and we all know how tense the relationship between China and the US is over the Taiwan issue. Companies that used to work exclusively with TSMC are now starting to look to Samsung as a strategic

backup plan, so this is a real opportunity for them, even though the road to catching up with TSMC in technology and advanced processes is still long. Next, what about the tablets, Samsung phones, or watches that everyone still uses? The full-year

2025 revenue for this division was nearly 30 trillion won, but the operating profit was only about 2 trillion won. That means the profit margin is less than 10%, around 7%.

This is an extremely thin profit margin when compared to competitors like Apple . This is an inevitable consequence due to the fierce competitive environment in this industry. Since Samsung is neither a brand with very cheap products like Chinese brands nor as

high-end as Apple. The main difference between Samsung and its biggest rival, Apple, lies in their manufacturing supply chains. On the surface, the two companies look quite similar. That is because their products are all manufactured overseas. For instance, in

countries like Vietnam, China, or India . But in reality, they are actually quite different. Apple outsources almost 100%of its assembly to partners like Foxconn or Pegatron. Meanwhile, Samsung operates its own factories in Vietnam and other countries. By the end

of 2025, Samsung's total investment in Vietnam is expected to reach about 62.5 billion dollars. This scale is so massive that in 2015, the revenue of Samsung's companies in Vietnam, as shown here, was estimated at around 62 billion dollars. According to my

research, Vietnam's GDP in 2015 was approximately 514 billion dollars. So, their revenue accounted for about 12%of Vietnam's GDP. And it is precisely this difference in outsourcing strategies that leads to different asset structures for Samsung and Apple. This is the balance sheet for Apple and

Samsung. In the assets section, you can see that Samsung's fixed assets— meaning factories and machinery— amount to about 224 trillion VND. This figure is equivalent to 30%of their total assets. It is a bit lower than that of a pure manufacturing enterprise

in Vietnam. For example, at Hoa Phat Steel, fixed assets already account for half of their total assets. However, when compared to Apple, a company that completely outsources the assembly of its components, Samsung's proportion of fixed assets is significantly higher.

That is because Apple's is only 13%. Furthermore, even though Samsung's core philosophy is self-production, since 2019 they have started experimenting with outsourcing part of their budget phone lines to Chinese companies under the ODM model. Results from 2024 show

that about a quarter of their phone production was assigned to Chinese partners such as Wintech or Longcheer.

This applies primarily to low-cost devices like the Galaxy A series, while high-end models remain internally produced to ensure quality. I think this is a notable detail because it shows that even Samsung, a company that prides itself on its self-manufacturing

capabilities, is gradually adopting the cost-optimization logic that Apple has long applied, at least in the lowest segments of their product portfolio. So , in return, does Apple learn anything from Samsung? Well, they don’t learn from them; they just buy from them.

Samsung Display is the world's leading OLED panel manufacturer, and for many years, they have been the primary screen supplier for the iPhone, a major competitor to their own Galaxy line.

What I’m wondering is, what would happen if Samsung intentionally made their screens worse when selling them to Apple? Would that reduce the demand for the iPhone? And would the Samsung Galaxy line see an increase in buyers?

Samsung's display sales revenue is around 7.5 trillion won, which is quite small compared to their other business segments, especially mobile phones, so let’s just assume Samsung lost all orders from Apple. Would the increase in Samsung phone sales from Apple users

switching over be enough to compensate the group? Let me know in the comments below. Anyway, with the advantage of being able to produce most of the components that make up an electronic device, Samsung's edge is that they hardly need to pick a side in the

competition against other brands, as they can profit from both ends: selling their own finished products and selling components to rivals. There is another segment, the production of audio equipment like speakers and instruments , but I find the revenue to be rather

small. Each quarter is only a few hundred million to one or two trillion won. It is nothing compared to the hundreds of trillions from their other business segments, so I won't be mentioning it. As for how large Samsung's influence is in Vietnam, you

all probably already know. But what about in South Korea? In 2024, economists at Bloomberg estimated a record-high contribution from Samsung to South Korea. According to their calculations, Samsung seems to contribute up to half of South Korea’s economic growth. This

economic weight has permeated every nook and cranny of life in South Korea. When you buy a phone in South Korea, you're likely buying a Samsung, and for life insurance, you're likely signing a contract with Samsung Life. When you

take a ferry, that ship might have been built by Samsung. When you go to an amusement park, you are also paying Samsung. This is a direct consequence of this conglomerate existing for nearly 90 years and having expanded into almost every key industry, from

construction and shipbuilding to financial services, and of course, electronics and semiconductors. And because of this weight, Korean society has formed a cultural phenomenon that I think is hard to find anywhere else in the world: the dream of becoming a "

Samsung Man." For Korean youth, and especially for their parents, passing all the academic and social hurdles to qualify for a job at the country's largest company is considered the pinnacle of personal success. Each year , more than 200,000 South Koreans apply

to Samsung. A staggering number when compared to the country's population size. Those who do not pass Samsung's rigorous entrance exams will move to the next rung on the social career hierarchy, working for smaller chaebols like Hyundai or LG. And for those who

cannot even reach that level, they move on to small and medium-sized enterprises. This is a reality that many find embarrassing because it is implicitly understood as a form of failure within the social value system.

And if you think the story of chaebol power standing above the law is just a Samsung issue, it is actually a common characteristic of the entire system.

Take this story as an example. In 2014, the vice president of Korean Air, Cho Hyun-ah, became enraged simply because a bag of macadamia nuts was served incorrectly on a flight. Instead of being served on a plate, they were left

in the bag. She forced the entire flight, which was preparing for takeoff , to turn around just to fire the flight attendant on the spot. And this incident sparked a wave of public outrage because it perfectly reflected what the people had long been

frustrated with: the arrogant entitlement of the chaebol leadership. She was sentenced to a maximum of 15 years in prison, but received a minimum sentence of only 12 months, and actually served just 5 months before being released. More serious was the

2014 Sewol ferry disaster, with 476 people on board, mostly students on a field trip; over 300, primarily children, perished when the ferry capsized due to being overloaded. A decision that stemmed from the profit-maximization motives of the family that owned the ferry company.

Subsequent investigations also discovered that coast guard officials had accepted bribes to deliberately ignore clear safety violations during the inspection process. These two stories, while not directly related to Samsung, show that this is not a problem of a specific bad individual,

but a systemic characteristic of the entire South Korean chaebol model, where economic power is so concentrated that it can bend the state's judicial oversight apparatus. For instance, in 2017, Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was sentenced to 5 years in

prison for bribery, but only a year later, his sentence was halved and he was given 4 years of probation. Even former South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who during his campaign was very determined to curb the influence of chaebols on the Korean economy,

could not keep his promise when the economy slowed down in 2018 and he had to seek help from Samsung and other conglomerates. Although social dissatisfaction with chaebol privilege is rising, especially among the younger generation who have no direct memory of

the period when Samsung saved the economy from post-war poverty, the majority of people in South Korea still prioritize Samsung's stability over absolute justice for its leaders.

According to a 2022 survey, when Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong was in prison, up to 70%of South Koreans supported granting him a pardon. This is quite clear evidence of this sentiment. Even though people dislike the fact that the head of a chaebol

commits crimes and escapes punishment, they still believe that if Samsung is healthy, South Korea is healthy, and they accept trading individual justice for collective stability. This is the cycle that two previous presidents have tried to break. Park Geun-hye in 2012

campaigned on the promise of curbing the power of chaebols, followed by Moon Jae-in after the Choi Soon-sil scandal.

But today, nearly a century after Lee Byung-chul opened his first dried fish store in Daegu, this system remains basically intact. Samsung is not just a Korean company but a part of the country's operating apparatus, to the point where the government, the

judiciary, and even public opinion all operate under an unwritten logic: do not let anything harm Samsung. Because harming Samsung is effectively harming the entire nation. And with such a massive influence in South Korea, let's look back at Samsung's financial

situation to see if they are facing any problems. The most obvious place to look is their capital structure, as this is the most distinctive point of Samsung when compared to other technology companies globally. Samsung Electronics' debt-to-equity ratio was

only about 0.04 as of mid-2026, with short-term debt of about $ 9.75 billion and long-term debt of $ 4.9 billion compared to shareholders 'equity of up to $ 369.45 billion. The 10-year median for this ratio is only about 0.06,

fluctuating within a very narrow range from 0.03 to 0.09. To easily visualize how unusual this figure is, the global technology hardware industry median is about 0.28, which is seven times higher than Samsung's. In other words, while most major semiconductor rivals in the

world like Intel or Micron often borrow heavily to fund massive factory investments, Samsung is almost completely self-reliant in terms of capital. They use their own accumulated cash to fund every production expansion phase instead of borrowing from banks or issuing bonds. If you remember the

story from the first part of Samsung's history, after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, when the average debt-to-equity ratio of the entire chaebol system reached 519%and pushed a series of conglomerates, including Samsung and Daewoo, to the brink of collapse, the

Korean government, under pressure from the IMF bailout package, forced all 30 of the largest chaebols to lower that ratio to 200%within just two years.

This was a mandatory major surgery imposed on the entire system, and this externally imposed discipline gradually became deeply ingrained as the internal management culture of the entire conglomerate for nearly three decades thereafter. With this near-zero debt philosophy, Samsung was able to survive

the 2023 chip crisis, when the semiconductor division was losing billions of dollars each quarter, without having to sell off assets or drastically cut capital investment to pay off debt, so that when the cycle turned, they were one of the biggest

beneficiaries of this wave. And that is everything we found out about Samsung. That's plenty. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any videos.