Samsung Company

Samsung started its business during the period of Japanese occupation. In 1936 Lee Byung –chul, a college dropout, the son of a wealthy Korean landowning family and the founder of Samsung opened a rice mill and a small transportation company at Masan on the southeastern coast of the Korean Peninsula. The company grew as a regional exporter of food products and textiles.

When a war broke out between China and Japan, Lee was forced to move his business to Taegu in northeastern Korea, hometown of the political in the military regimes.

He established the Samsung General Store exporting dried fruits, dried seafood and general merchandise to Manchuria in northeast mainland China, which at that time was also a Japanese colony.

Lee expanded the business with a sugar-refining company, a wool-textile subsidiary, and a couple of insurance business.

In 1969, Samsung Electronics Company was established. In the 1970s, Samsung particularly strengthened its electronics and semiconductor business. The founding of Samsung Electronics highlighted the group’s participation in state led growth, international technology transfer and trade.

A Samsung washing machine became a runaway seller after ads portrayed a young wife pleasing her husband with clean laundry. The message was that even in Korea’s patriarchal society, a woman could control her man by using a Samsung products.

When Samsung, in 2004, was ranked as the world’s 21st most valuable brand, it was acknowledgement of its global presence.
Samsung Company

RadioShack

The Tandy Corporation was established as a small leather goods company name Hinkley/Tandy Leather Company in 1918.

RadioShack was established in Boston in 1921 by Theodore and Milton Deutschmann to sell high-tech products. The company went through difficult times especially with downturn in the market of its best-selling line so citizen-band radios.

After World War II, the Tandy leather-craft stores were expanded and by 1960 numbered 160. RadioShack was purchased in 1963 and had only nine units.

In 1961, the company changed its name to Tandy Corporation with Charles Tandy as president and chairman of the board. In the early days, RadioShack was an outlet for Tandy products with relatively narrow market niche.

Domestic manufacture of RadioShack products began in 1967 with entry-level hobbyist electronic kits.

In the 1970s, the company made millions of the CB radio craze that hit the United States. In the early 1980s, Radio Shack did well with an inexpensive personal computer.

In 1993 Tandy decided to sell its computer-making operations and placed new emphasize on retailing by bringing in a new president of RadioShack.

RadioShack served the electronic-hobbyist market until the 2000s, when it shifted over to hawking cell-phone plans and other consumer electronic products.
RadioShack

Westinghouse Electric Company before 1900

Westinghouse Electric Company was founded on January 8, 1886 as Westinghouse Electric Corporation by George Westinghouse (October 6, 1846 – March 12, 1914).

It was organized in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Westinghouse’s tremendous energy and diverse skills made him successful.  During his 48 career, he form about 70 companies and took out more than 400 patents.

In the 1880s, Westinghouse Electric Company played a central role in the development of energy-supply systems.

Not only did the company design equipment for the safe piping of natural gas, but also introducing of alternating current electricity supply to America.

Westinghouse focuses on alternating current allowed for the transmission of power over greater distances.

In 1893 the company provided lighting system for Chicago World’s Fair with a great success.

Subsequently, Westinghouse won contracts to convert the energy of Niagara Falls into electric, which supplied power to Buffalo, New York in 1895, and provided equipment to power elevated trains and subway systems in several major cities.

Westinghouse did not prosper greatly from these developments, as he faced extensive litigation, and the Panic of 1907 weakened Westinghouse Electric’s finances. George Westinghouse lost control of Westinghouse Electric in 1907 but retained control of his companies.

The company then became a leader in railroad electrification and then began moving into consumer products in the 1920s.
Westinghouse Electric Company before 1900

Toshiba in history

Toshiba dates back to 1904 but only became a comprehensive manufacturer of electric goods following a merger carried out in 1939 under the military campaign to consolidate and rationalize production.

Specialized firms Tokyo Denki (founded in 1890) and Shibaura Seisaku-sho (founded in 1875) joined forces in the formation of the company. The original name was Tokyo Shibaura Electric KK. It was officially changed to Toshiba Corporation in 1978.

Toshiba’s superior management techniques, borrowed from GE during the inter-war period, made it the largest supplier of electrical equipment to the armed forces.

The company made significant investments in information, communication and semiconductor technology in the early 1980’s.

Among the products it developed and produced in the course of its history were incandescent lamps (1890), white goods (including electric refrigerators, 1930), fluorescent lamps (1940), nuclear-powered turbine generators (1963) and transmitting devices for use in satellite transmission (1963).

Toshiba was the first firm to set up an independent electronics research laboratory; while other firms reorganized and expanded their R & D laboratories.

In the end of March 2004, its employees numbered 161,000 globally, with 120,000 of these employed in Japan.
Toshiba in history