From ‘Sam-suck’ to Apple rival: The Samsung transformation

SEOUL: Military-style management and an unquestioning reverence for the founding Lee family have fuelled Samsung’s transition from the world’s most ridiculed phonemaker to its biggest, says the author of a new book.

Today Samsung — by far South Korea’s most powerful conglomerate with more than 50 affiliates from electronics and insurance to hotels and apartments — is a larger smartphone manufacturer than Apple, and at the same time a key supplier to its great rival.

The group’s overall turnover is equivalent to a fifth of the GDP of the world’s 12th-largest economy, where citizens sometimes refer to their country as the “Republic of Samsung”.

It is a remarkable transformation from only a few years ago when Western consumers mocked it as “Sam-suck” for its unreliable products.