Also in 2011, Samsung hit a new milestone: It surpassed Apple to become the world’s largest mobile phone maker in terms of sales.

“It was another classic case of Samsung becoming better than the original,” said Chung of Chaebul.com. “This is possible thanks to Samsung’s strong leadership, and also its technological prowess, without which a feat like this could never have been.”

The 2011 figures also takes Samsung on a trip down memory lane ― no pun intended ― to 1988 when it launched its first mobile phone.

The company did not fare well then or in the 1990s. Its market share in Korea was at a mere 10 percent. In sharp contrast, Motorola held a market share of over 60 percent in Korea’s mobile phone market.

That was then. Now, all the big players of those times ― Nokia, Research in Motion, Motorola and even newcomers such as HTC ― have left or are a shadow of their past selves.

Samsung’s Galaxy S series, its flagship mobile handset lineup, has risen to the top of the market, based on the past trials and errors that Samsung experienced when it had to endure being labeled as a second or at times, even a third-tier player in the mobile phone market.

In addition to the fact that Samsung had opened the possibility of a whole new lineup of smartphones to the public, which was just starting to grasp the attraction of this new concept created by Apple, it also did what many other handset makers were unable to do: support multiple operating systems.

Symbian, Microsoft Windows Phone and Samsung’s indigenous Bada system are used, although they are not as widely used as the Google Android. 

In 2009, Samsung sold 235 million mobile handsets. But by the end of 2010, Samsung had a global market share of over 20 percent, a feat it had achieved in just a year.

A year later, Samsung beat out Apple in worldwide smartphone sales in the third quarter, with a market share of just under 24 percent, compared with Apple’s almost 15 percent share.

As of last year, Samsung became the world’s largest mobile phone maker.

By Kim Ji-hyun  (jemmie@heraldcorp.com)