The Bigger Picture

With more than two decades in the country, Samsung India has a finger in every pie, and is fighting intense competition to stay on top of the game with innovation and a strong distribution network on the ground.

- Arnika Thakur & Abhik Sen

THOSE WERE HEADY days. India had just woken up to a brand new world after the economy was liberalised. The Daewoo Cielo, a sedan, created quite a stir, while TVs from Akai, GoldStar, Aiwa, and Samsung could be bought in stores. Indians travelling from abroad didn’t have to carry fancy VCRs and cool electronic gadgets in their luggage anymore. The magic wand of liberalisation had indeed brought the world to India’s doorstep. Multinationals from around the world started setting up shop in the country—some of them in a big way—to tap into the massive demand that the booming Indian population, one of the largest in Asia, promised. There were others who decided to test the waters before making the plunge. Samsung, the South Korean behemoth, was one of them.

Samsung products are widely available and very popular in India today, but when the parent group, Samsung Electronics, set up Samsung India Electronics in 1995, it started small. It had just two employees and a small office in New Delhi’s Connaught Place. Dealing in televisions then, the company had a tie-up with Videocon.

Samsung’s first research and development (R&D) centre in the country was set up in Bengaluru in 1996. A year later, televisions assembled in India rolled off the company’s Noida factory in Uttar Pradesh. Samsung started making refrigerators in the country in 2003 and mobile phones in 2007. The same year, an R&D centre dedicated to the mobile division was set up in Noida.