After the 'Anycall Burning Ceremony', Became a Ten Million Seller
Turned the Tide with the 2010 Galaxy S Series
'SGH-T100' (Captured from Samsung Electronics blog)
[Asia Economy Reporter Han Jinju] From Anycall to Galaxy, Chairman Lee Kun-hee of Samsung Electronics created a turning point in the history of Samsung Electronics' smartphones. After the Anycall bonfire event, Samsung targeted the mobile phone market, surpassing Nokia, and has maintained the world's number one smartphone position since 2012 by catching up with Apple through the Galaxy S series.
The 'Anycall bonfire event' is regarded as a turning point that created the Anycall myth. Samsung Electronics entered the mobile phone business in the 1990s but faced a bitter report card with an 11.8% defect rate. In March 1995, 150,000 defective mobile phones, cordless phones, and facsimiles were destroyed and burned at the Gumi plant. After the bonfire event, the defect rate dropped to the 2% range. Subsequently, Anycall's domestic mobile phone market share jumped from 30% to 50%. In September 1996, Samsung signed its first mobile phone export contract with Sprint in the United States and began aggressively targeting overseas markets from 1997.
Chairman Lee adhered to a 'premium strategy' and continuously pursued the mobile phone market. In 2002, he opened the ten million (10 million units sold) era with the Lee Kun-hee phone (model SCH-T100). With the Anycall brand, Samsung closely chased Nokia, the number one in the mobile phone market in 2009, and caught up with Nokia in 2012. In the past, the call and end buttons on mobile phones were placed at the bottom, but their relocation to the top was also under Chairman Lee's direction. By developing the world's first TV phone and digital camera phone, Samsung demonstrated its technological prowess in the mobile phone market.
After the iPhone appeared in 2007, Samsung Electronics released the Windows OS-based 'Omnia' series in 2008 and 2009 but suffered a crushing defeat in the early smartphone market. Chairman Lee, who returned to management in 2010, emphasized a sense of crisis by saying, "Most of Samsung's representative businesses and products will disappear within ten years," and urged, "Let's keep moving forward." This was when criticism arose that the fast follower strategy of chasing leading companies and growing rapidly had reached its limit.
Subsequently, Samsung Electronics created a turning point with the 'Galaxy S' series smartphones equipped with Google's Android OS. The Galaxy S was a product that Chairman Lee personally oversaw from development to launch and was called the 'Lee Kun-hee phone.' The Galaxy S became Samsung's first ten million smartphone by achieving global sales of 10 million units in 2011. Two years after the Galaxy S series was launched, in 2012, Samsung Electronics overtook Apple to become number one in market share and has maintained the lead since. At that time, Samsung sold 400 million units worldwide with models such as the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2.
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