Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (Korean: 삼성전자; Hanja: 三星電子 (Literally "tristar electronics")) is a South Korean multinational electronics company headquartered in Suwon, South Korea. Through extremely complicated ownership structure with some circular ownership, it is the flagship division of the Samsung Group, accounting for 70% of the group's revenue in 2012. It is the world's second largest information technology company by revenue after Apple. Samsung Electronics has assembly plants and sales networks in 80 countries and employs around 370,000 people. Since 2012, Kwon Oh-hyun has served as the company's CEO.
Samsung has long been a major manufacturer of electronic components such as lithium-ion batteries, semiconductors, chips, flash memory and hard drive devices for clients such as Apple, Sony, HTC and Nokia.
It is the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones and smartphones fueled by the popularity of its Samsung Galaxy line of devices. The company is also a major vendor of tablet computers, particularly its Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Tab collection, and is generally regarded as pioneering the phablet market through the Samsung Galaxy Note family of devices.
Samsung has been the world's largest television manufacturer since 2006, and the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones since 2011. It is also the world's largest memory chips manufacturer. Samsung Electronics is a major part of the South Korean economy; in 2012 it was responsible for 20% of GDP.
