SAMSUNG

The Samsung Group

Is the world's largest conglomerate by revenue, headquarted in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It is South Korea's largest chaebol and composed of numerous international affiliated businesses, most of them united under the Samsung brand, including Samsung Electronics, the world's largest electronics company, Samsung Heavy Industries, the world's second largest shipbuilder and Samsung Engineering & Construction, a major global construction company. These three multinationals form the core of Samsung Group and reflect its name - the meaning of the Korean word Samsung is "tristar" or "three stars".

Samsung has been the world's most popular consumer electronics brand since 2005 and is the best known South Korean brand in the world. Samsung Group accounts for more than 20% of South Korea's total exports and is the leader in many domestic industries, such as the financial, chemical, retail and entertainment industries. The company's strong influence in South Korea is visible throughout the nation, which has been referred to as the "Republic of Samsung".

In 2008, Samsung became the largest mobile phone maker in the United States and 2nd largest mobile phone maker in the world after Nokia.

Considered a strong competitor by its rivals, Samsung Electronics expanded production dramatically to become the world's largest manufacturer of DRAM chips, flash memory, optical storage drives and it aims to double sales and become the top manufacturer of 20 products globally by 2010. It is now one of the world's leading manufacturers of liquid crystal displays and next generation mobile phones.

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IPHONE

The iPhone

Is an Internet and multimedia enabled smartphone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Because its minimal hardware interface lacks a physical keyboard, the multi-touch screen renders a virtual keyboard when necessary. The iPhone functions as a camera phone (also including text messaging and visual voicemail), a portable media player (equivalent to a video iPod), and an Internet client (with email, web browsing, and Wi-Fi connectivity). The first-generation phone hardware was quad-band GSM with EDGE; the second generation added UMTS with 3.6 Mbps HSDPA; the third generation adds support for 7.2 Mbps HSDPA downloading but remains limited to 384 Kbps uploading as Apple had not implemented the HSPA protocol.

Apple announced the iPhone on January 9, 2007, after months of rumors and speculation. The original iPhone was introduced in the United States on June 29, 2007 before being marketed worldwide. Time magazine named it the Invention of the Year in 2007. Released July 11, 2008, the iPhone 3G supports faster 3G data speeds and assisted GPS. On March 17, 2009, Apple announced version 3.0 of the iPhone OS operating system for the iPhone (and iPod Touch), released on June 17, 2009. The iPhone 3GS was announced on June 8, 2009, and has improved performance, a camera with more megapixels and video capability, and voice control. It was released in the U.S., Canada and 6 European countries on June 19, 2009, in Australia and Japan on June 26, and saw international release in July and August, 2009.

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O2 (Telefonica Europe Plc)

Telefónica Europe Plc (O2)

Is an European telecommunications company providing both fixed and mobile communication products, usually under the styled brand O2 (typeset as O2). The company has its origins in a collection of worldwide mobile businesses, known in the latter half of the 1990s as BT Wireless within British Telecom and an operator-independent global mobile data business then known as Genie Internet, which was also a subsidiary of BT Group.

This demerger of BT's mobile communications businesses was part of a plan to strengthen the capital position of its shareholders following declining telecommunications industry valuations in the late 1990s. The companies involved in the demerger were BT Cellnet, which became O2 UK; Esat Digifone, which became O2 Ireland; Viag Interkom, which became O2 Germany; Telfort, which became O2 Netherlands; Manx Telecom (Isle of Man); O2 Airwave (UK); and Genie Internet, which split into O2 Online and O2 Asia.

The demerger took place on 17 November 2001, the resultant parent company being named mmo2 plc. A later capital reorganisation in March 2005 also saw the name of the company change to O2 plc.

After a five year period of independence (during which it disposed of its subsidiary in Netherlands to a private equity company, which reverted it back to the Telfort brand) the O2 group was acquired by Telefónica of Spain on 23 January 2006 in what was described at that time as the biggest all-cash takeover in the history of the telecommunications industry.

Following the £17.7 billion cash purchase by Telefónica the company was renamed Telefónica O2 Europe plc. At the same time (March 2006), Telefónica merged its Český Telecom and Eurotel businesses into Telefónica O2 Czech Republic which became a subsidiary of Telefónica O2 Europe plc. Additionally, in 2006 O2 UK acquired a UK-based DSL broadband startup called Be Unlimited and the O2 group won a tender to become the 3rd mobile phone operator in Slovakia, forming a company trading as Telefónica O2 Slovakia. In 2007, the group sold Airwave to a subsidiary of Australia's Macquarie Group.

In June 2008, the company was renamed Telefónica Europe plc. The company has its group headquarters in Slough, UK, with its Irish Headquarters in Dublin, German headquarters in Munich, Czech headquarters in Prague, Slovak headquarters in Bratislava and Manx headquarters in Douglas, Isle of Man. It has several hundred national retail outlets across these countries offering mobile phone, fixed telephony and broadband DSL products. By 31 March 2009 the company had 46.7 million customers in the UK, Germany, Ireland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia.

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