[Chairman Lee Kun-hee Passes Away] Lee Kun-hee, Creator of the 'Anycall·Galaxy Legend'

Chairman Lee Kun-hee of Samsung Group emphasized the fundamental need for structural reform at Samsung by holding a "burning ceremony" in 1995, where 150,000 defective mobile phones were gathered and set on fire at the Gumi plant. The scene of the burning ceremony at that time.

[Asia Economy Reporter Changhwan Lee] "The era where each person must have one wireless device is coming. We must prioritize phones."

Lee Kun-hee, Chairman of Samsung Group, who passed away at the age of 78 on the 25th, made this prediction in the early 1990s when Samsung chose mobile phones as a new business.

His prediction came true. From the 1990s, landline phones rapidly disappeared and mobile phones quickly spread.

However, Samsung's mobile phone market share was low in the early stages of the business. Samsung ambitiously launched its first mobile phone in 1994, but it was rejected by the market due to a defect rate of 11.8%.

In response, in 1995, Chairman Lee held a "burning ceremony" at the Gumi plant, burning 150,000 defective mobile phones to emphasize the need for fundamental improvement in Samsung's structure.

Later that August, Samsung Anycall surpassed Motorola, the world's number one mobile phone market leader, to take the top spot domestically with a 51.5% market share. At that time, South Korea was the only country where Motorola did not hold the number one market share.

This was the moment when mobile phones became Samsung's new growth engine following semiconductors. Anycall gained worldwide popularity and made Samsung's mobile phones a key product following semiconductors.

The popularity of Anycall continued with the Galaxy series of smartphones. As the mobile phone market underwent drastic changes with Apple's smartphone launch, Samsung quickly released the Galaxy series to chase Apple.

Starting with the Galaxy S2 released in 2011, Samsung overtook Apple in the third quarter of 2011 to become the world's number one smartphone market leader.

Since then, Samsung smartphones have maintained the number one position worldwide in sales, powered by the success of the Galaxy series.