三星电子的成功英文版.docx

1、三星电子的成功英文版IT HAS been a remarkable year for Samsung Electronics. Last weekend, the company was one of the stars at the giant consumer-electronics show in Las Vegas, where it unveiled a glittering array of new products. Among them was a notable first: a mobile phone that uses voice-recognition techno

2、logy to convert speech into text messages, offering respite to people who find typing messages on their mobiles tiny keyboard frustrating. Another Samsung model automatically scans business cards and inserts the details into the users address book.Just as impressive is the fact that this week Samsun

3、g will announce record-breaking annual results, not just as South Koreas most profitable, but also as its most visible, company. Samsung has edged closer to its Japanese rival Sony as the worlds leading consumer-electronics firm. It is already the largest producer of many digital devices. It is pois

4、ed to overtake Americas Motorola as the worlds second-biggest maker of mobile phones.Yet even as Samsung was closing the books on a triumphant 2004, its future was looking less certain. The Korean won soared to a seven-year high against the dollar, reducing the value of much of its overseas earnings

5、. While electronic gadgets such as digital cameras, mobile phones and flat-screen televisions remain as popular as ever, prices are falling. That cuts into Samsungs profit margins. Worst of all, the companys memory-chip business, by far its most profitable operation in 2004, is facing harder times a

6、s the notoriously cyclical semiconductor industry enters yet another downturn.For Samsungs bosses, this may seem dishearteningly familiar. In 1995 the company also smashed earnings records, only to see chip prices tumble and currencies head into turmoil. By the dark days of the 1997 Asian economic c

7、risis, Samsung was deep in debt and heading towards bankruptcy. But this time things should be different. The company has now been transformed in so many ways, maintains Yun Jong-yong, a company veteran who took over as chief executive in 1996, that it can not only weather the coming storm, but will

8、 sail on to even greater things.Mr Yun has to plot an ambitious course. The companys strategy is based on providing leading-edge, stylish products that can be sold for a premium. If we were to compete only on price, admits one executive, the Chinese would slaughter us.So far, the strategy has paid o

9、ff handsomely. Boosted by margins of more than 40% on semiconductors in the second quarter of 2004, Samsung Electronics profits began to rise rapidly. By the third quarter, the companys net profit was already almost twice what it earned in the whole of 2003 (see chart). Then the signs of trouble beg

10、an. Nevertheless, despite the recent slowdown in earnings, as The Economist went to press analysts were confidently expecting the company to report an annual net profit of around 10 trillion won ($9.5 billion) on January 14th. That is excellent by any measure. But it is not just with its earnings th

11、at Samsung wants to impress. The company is also investing heavily to ensure that history does not repeat itself. Research and development accounted for $2.9 billion in 2003, around 8% of revenue. More than 20,000 of Samsungs 88,000 employees work as researchers in 15 R&D centres around the world. C

12、apital spending is more than $5 billion. The company is building the worlds most advanced factory for making giant liquid-crystal displays (LCDs), and between now and 2010 intends to spend around $24 billion on new chipmaking facilities, despite falling chip prices. Pre-emptive investment is critica

13、l to success in the semiconductor industry, says Lee Kun-hee, Samsungs chairman.And more money will be spent on brand-building. A decade ago, Samsung was mostly seen as a producer of cheap televisions and microwave ovens. Mr Lee complained that, while Samsung could build a TV that was technically ju

14、st as good as one made by Sony, his sets would sit at the back of a store or be piled up high in discount chains. He wanted to move upmarket. But Samsung, like many Asian producers, was a business geared to pushing products out of the door as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Switching tactics wou

15、ld involve wrenching changes. The 1997 financial crisis made the transition possible, says Mr Yun. Our capital was almost completely eroded, he adds. By July 1998, the company was losing 170 billion won a month. As employees realised that even a firm as big as Samsung could go bust, a restructuring

16、plan was launched. Its scope (and its success) came as a shock in a country that has some of the worlds most militant trade unions: around 30% of employees lost their jobs as the company slimmed down and sold more than 100 non-essential businesses. There was also a desperate need to cut inventories,

17、 says Mr Yun. So he closed factories, sometimes for weeks at a time. As more emphasis was placed on designing better, more attractive products, the firm also made a concerted effort to raise its profile in the minds of consumers.In 1999, Eric Kim was recruited to run a global marketing office. He wa

18、s born in South Korea, but brought up in America where he had worked for a number of technology companies. At first Mr Kim was treated warily, but he succeeded in unifying fragmented sales channels that used more than 50 different advertising agencies. He also made the most of the companys prowess i

19、n technology, launching consistent and more daring advertising campaigns. Samsung also used product placement to good effect; lots of its futuristic gadgets appeared in the cult movie Matrix Reloaded. And the company decided to become a principal sponsor of the Olympic Games. Following the success o

20、f the Athens games last year, this has paid off, with another big increase in consumer awareness of its brand. Mr Kim more than doubled Samsungs annual marketing budget to about $3 billion.In September last year, Mr Kim suddenly decamped to join Intel, Samsungs main chipmaking rival and a company th

21、at harbours its own ambitions to expand into consumer products. Gregory Lee, who has worked with a number of American consumer-goods companies, took on the role, inheriting a global review of Samsungs advertising. The complexity of modern consumer marketing has led some big companies to want to deal

22、 primarily with just the parent company of one of the handful of global advertising groups rather than trying to manage lots of specialist agencies. WPP, a British-based group, won that central role for Samsung.Planning is now under way for the next big campaign. According to Interbrand, a consultan

23、cy, the value of Samsungs brand is now close to that of Sony. However, the South Korean company is not yet a brand that can live without the product, says Jan Lindemann, Interbrands head of brand valuation. The next step is to encourage customers to turn to the Samsung brand before they think about

24、what product to buy, rather than being led to the brand by an interesting device. To get to that iconic status, Samsung has to be perceived as even more cool than it is today.But there was something else that allowed Samsung to transform itself. There are times in any industry when a step change in

25、technology lets new leaders emerge, believes David Steel, vice-president of Samsungs digital-media business. He says the transition from analogue devices to digital ones provided Samsung with its moment. The convergence of digital products and services may provide another. Suddenly there seem to be

26、more opportunities than ever before to combine different devices. For instance, MP3 players, which can store music downloaded from the internet, are being incorporated into mobile phones. With the addition of a lens and fast memory chips, the phones become usable as digital cameras and camcorders to

27、o. Many people think that the mobile phone will emerge as a central device in the digital future. South Korea, where more than three-quarters of the population have mobiles, provides good evidence for this. Many people already use their handsets for e-mail and even video-messaging-and 20% of them bu

28、y a new handset every seven months. A new high-speed wireless service will soon deliver even whizzier services to portable devices, including high-definition television. The fact that South Korea is now one of the most-wired countries in the world has provided Samsung with an advantage: a ready-made

29、 laboratory for testing consumer reactions to new digital technologies.Marvellous mobilesThe mobile phone has certainly done the most to help Samsungs new image. Handsets have become fashion statements, and an aid to selling other things, says InterbrandsMrLindemann. But a decade ago it was a differ

30、ent story. South Koreans didnt see us as a high-quality company, says Choi Chang-soo, vice-president of Samsungs mobile communications division. To change that perception, Samsung set out to make a handset that could be marketed as one that works better in Korea. It was, for instance, more sensitive

31、 and so could receive and make calls in places such as basement restaurants that are often shaded from signals. The company also developed its own keypad interface for Korean characters. It was also a struggle to get Samsungs handsets accepted as premium products by overseas operators, says Mr Choi.

32、 But eventually the business took off. Samsung helped to popularise the clamshell design and in 2004 launched the first handset that will work with both the CDMA and GSM systems used in different parts of the world. According to Gartner, a firm of technology analysts, in the third quarter of 2004 Sa

33、msung nudged ahead of Motorola by selling almost 23m phones worldwide, giving it a 13.8% market share, the second biggest after Nokia (see table).With many of its most profitable products now coming under pressure, is Samsungs remarkable resurgence about to come to an end? Michael Hoosik Min, who follows the compa