When you think of Samsung, the first thing that comes in mind is most likely the Galaxy S6 edge, the Galaxy Note 5 and all the other remarkably great smartphones that come from the South Korean manufacturer. In fact, if you think of almost any phone maker, they focus only in electronics, network equipment, and other telecommunications technology related businesses. However, Samsung is a little bit different and not only smartphones and tablets bring food to the table for this Korean business giant. The Samsung that we know is actually called Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and this is just a branch of Samsung, a conglomerate based in Seoul encompassing several other companies, with some of them occupying top world positions in their respective industries.
Other than Samsung Electronics, another important branch of the company is Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI), which is the 3rd largest shipbuilder in the world as of June 2014. Everything is big over there and currently the company is working on the largest floating vessel the world has ever seen, the Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) platform Prelude, a monster 488 meters (1,601 ft) long vessel ordered by Shell for extracting natural gas from the Australian coast. The Prelude is not technically a ship since it does not move by its own power and needs to be towed by tugboats in order to swim around. At a cost of around $12 billion, it will be ready by 2017.
SHI doesn’t stop with this goliath, though, as the company is also building the world’s largest container ships to ever sail the oceans for Japanese shipping line Mitsui OSK. At 396 meters (1,300 feet) long and about 60 m (193 feet) wide, these ships will be too large for crossing the Panama Canal and will be able to carry 20.000 containers, which is a lot – and Samsung is building 3 of these. With a cost of $609 million, it will be ready in 2017 as well, just like the monster FLNG. The shipyard has also built several other large container ships, cruise ships, and oil rigs. Although these numbers are huge and impressive, Samsung still makes most of its money from selling smartphones. While the shipyard had a revenue of $11.8 billion in 2014, Samsung Electronics (Galaxy smartphones and tablets) brought in revenues of $44.7 billion only in Q3 2015. Still, it is nice to know other businesses Samsung is in. That said, every time you buy a Galaxy smartphone, there’s a chance it was shipped to you by a ship built by Samsung.
