Innovating Our Way to American Leadership

December is always an exciting time for Samsung. Just a few weeks ago, we received no less than thirty CES Innovation Awards for outstanding design and engineering in cutting-edge technology, including five for our semiconductor and LED divisions. And on the other side of the New Year, we’ll be heading to the Consumer Electronics Show to introduce some of these honored products to customers and industry peers.

But this year has another element of excitement, because 2018 also marked Samsung’s 40th anniversary in America. And over those 40 years, the story that has excited me the most is the truly transformational innovation that’s been generated here.

Much of that innovation, disruption and transformation has come out of Silicon Valley, which is home to our Semiconductor Division’s U.S. headquarters. We’ve continued to build our footprint not just in the Bay Area but across the U.S. through partnerships with start-ups and established technology companies.

Today, Samsung is in the process of pivoting from solely producing discreet products – storage, memory, application processors, image sensors and LED components – to developing seamlessly connected ecosystems. Samsung’s comprehensive product portfolio with state-of-the-art solutions set new standards for data processing speed, capacity, bandwidth and energy conservation.

By leveraging such solutions, our customers are able to configure product solutions based on their requirements and develop exciting new tech offerings for market segments such as 5G, AI, enterprise and hyper-scale data centers, connected vehicles, networking and beyond. We know these emerging and established applications are what will make our dream of a connected world real, and we continue to bet big on our innovation leadership here in the U.S.

As the number one U.S. patent holder with 25 percent of our employees dedicated to R&D activities, technological breakthroughs are all in a day’s work for Samsung. It’s a mindset and a belief that faster, smaller, more energy efficient devices such as memory, solid state drives, processors, and sensors are always possible, even when others say it can’t be done.

Over the last four decades, we’ve entered product categories like semiconductors, TVs, phones as the underdog, and have since created new industry standards. We’ve grown from a tiny sales outpost to an employer of more than 20,000 American workers. Today, over 71% of all U.S. households hold at least one Samsung product.

That’s been the story of Samsung in America. When we set our sights on a goal we don’t stop until we reach it. We think big, we use technology to solve big challenges, and we’ve got big plans for our next 40 years in America.