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Samsung

Samsung was established in 1969 and is one of the largest electronics manufacturers in the world. Its products include televisions and other home appliances; health and medical equipment; smartphones and tablets; telecommunications network equipment; and semiconductors. The company reported that it had the largest global market share in sales of televisions, smartphones and certain semiconductors in 2019. It has 230 worldwide operating hubs, including its headquarters in the Republic of Korea, manufacturing plants, sales subsidiaries, design centres and research and development (R&D) facilities.

Summary

Samsung has the third–highest score in the benchmark among Asian companies and fourth among hardware companies. It is a leader in innovation, with strong support for open source and standards, and is one of the few companies that has published ethical principles for artificial intelligence (AI). The company also does well in digital skills, with initiatives at all training levels. In the use measurement area, Samsung is one of the highest ranked companies for child online protection. It stands out in the access area for the number of initiatives supporting digital opportunities for women and girls, leadership in supporting people with disabilities, and disclosure of its economic value distribution. Samsung produces an annual sustainability publication in which it reports on global standards relevant to the benchmark, including economic performance and customer privacy. Nevertheless, it has scope to enhance transparency around information security practices and reporting the percentage of women in technical roles.

Ranking position: #10 /100
Total score: 1.30 /2

Measurement area	Score (0-2)	Rank (0-100)
Access	1.09 /2	#17
Skills	1.19 /2	#13
Use	1.09 /2	#21
Innovation	1.81 /2	#4

Access: Samsung has a number of initiatives targeting women and girls, including in science, technology, engineering and maths fields in education, and in training traditional craftswomen in Asia on how to sell their products online. The company discloses disability hiring in its home market and has a range of product features for users with disabilities. Samsung also discloses data on its economic value distribution.
Skills: The company has programmes supporting basic and technical skills development, and school connectivity, which are often administered by subsidiaries. This is considered best practice because it leverages local knowledge to address skills gaps.
Use: Samsung has extensive programmes and commitments for child online safety, including providing inperson workshops and training on the topic. It also includes parental controls in its digital consumer products and runs a dedicated child online safety website.
Innovation: Samsung reports on the locations of its R&D facilities and has published guidelines for ethical AI. The company’s C-Lab supports social start-ups. It also has a robust statement on the importance of open source technologies.

Access: Samsung has an opportunity to promote basic access for vulnerable groups. While the company has many programmes directly promoting women’s digital access, it could enhance reporting metrics for these initiatives. Further, given that it publishes its direct economic impact, it is well–positioned to calculate its indirect economic impact.
Skills: While the company has initiatives in all areas of digital skills, it could demonstrate leadership in this area by arranging third–party assessments. Such evaluations can provide information on the impacts of its programmes, which could help inform whether to scale them up and allow other companies to replicate them.
Use: Samsung could be more forthcoming about how it handles cybersecurity within the group and it could consider collaborating on security incident response. The company trails its peers in some user data privacy areas, such as data portability, and it could more thoroughly explain who it shares data with.
Innovation: While Samsung has programmes that target digital inclusivity for women, it does not report details about how many women it employs in technical roles.

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2021
2023

More about the company

Headquarters: Seoul, Republic of Korea
Ownership structure: Publicly listed
Fiscal year: Ends 31 December
Group revenue: US$197,684 million (FY2019)
Group employees: 287,439 (FY2019)
Website: https://www.samsung.com

Samsung

Leading practices

Access

Skills

Use

Innovation

Risks and opportunities