I am inside Samsung’s global headquarters here in South Korea, where it’s lunchtime.
I’m getting an exclusive look inside Samsung,
exploring three of its sprawling campuses around the city of Seoul.
Samsung is the world’s most popular smartphone maker, ahead of Huawei and Apple.
But its smartphone business is only one part of the Samsung operation,
which includes shipping and even construction.
Samsung also makes TVs, washers, dryers, air conditioners, laptops, printers, fax machines,
door locks and it also has a large business-to-business unit.
Samsung employs over 320,000 people globally.
And about 70% of them are outside of South Korea.
It’s the world’s 12th largest company by revenue and the world’s second largest technology company.
Behind me is an actual bus depot for just Samsung employees.
And with so many campuses located around South Korea,
this tour feels like I’m exploring an entire city.
Every building you see behind me is part of Samsung right now.
And they also have anything you can imagine.
This campus has its own Dunkin' Donuts.
It even has its own fire stations too.
My first stop is Samsung Digital City.
At 346 acres, that makes it over three times the size of the Vatican City.
It’s home to its consumer electronics business
that includes everything from phones to TVs and microwaves.
There’s even a dedicated area within Digital City where Samsung is testing out its 5G technology.
In this part of the campus Samsung is testing its 5G network equipment through real life use cases.
So I see cameras on buildings, cameras over traffic lights.
This is some of the Samsung 5G network equipment that’s currently being deployed.
This one for instance is already being used in the U.S.
Samsung has signed 5G deals with the likes of AT&T and Verizon in the U.S.
Closer to home, Samsung is already working with all the major telco providers to deploy
its 5G network equipment, making South Korea one of the first countries to do so.
As I roam through Samsung’s campus, something stands out.
Security is tight here.
They actually have metal detectors for when you leave the building and that’s for security reasons.
That’s to ensure that no company property leaves the premises.
Next, I head to C-Lab, or Samsung’s Creative Lab.
It’s an in-house incubation program that lets employees pitch and work on their ideas
without having to worry about their day jobs.
A number of products have come out of C-Lab, including an on-demand 3D printer, a smart belt.
Successful projects are either absorbed in-house, or spun off into external startups,
with Samsung retaining a small stake in the companies.
Every campus has its own gym facility, it’s quite huge,
I’m told that it really peaks and gets crowded around 6pm.
This even has its own running track, there’s a fast lane and there's a slow lane,
which goes around the entire perimeter of the gym.
What’s really interesting is you can even borrow gym clothes,
so you don’t even need to bring your own clothes.
It’s almost lunchtime, so I'm going to take a break from this tour and have some lunch.
This is today’s lunch menu behind me. I see a lot of different cuisines.
I think I’ve found the most popular station here in the cafeteria.
I’m going to try some Korean noodles over at this station here.
Sorry.
This looks like a lot of food but they have a system where if you choose a brown tray,
that means you want more food, if you choose a green tray, that means you want less food.
So I didn’t know, but I’m secretly happy I chose this tray.
Lunch is completely free here on campus, there’s no cash registers or anything.
And the cafeterias are open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
There’s a rice station.
Instead of your usual condiments like ketchup and mustard, you've got...
Kimchi.
That is a lot of kimchi.
I just noticed that a lot of the columns have letters on them
so you can easily find your friends and sit with them.
Okay, see, we don’t need an app for everything.
If you have a big deadline and you can’t enjoy a sit down lunch,
well, this is the takeout section where you just grab and go.
As you leave the cafeteria, there’s this hallway where you can have a glass of water
and freshen up before you go back to work.
I guess I should freshen up as well.
After lunch, I take a walk in what’s referred to as, Central Park.
Right now, it's still around lunchtime so you have a lot of employees
taking a stroll and just hanging out.
There's a lot of different trees, colours.
There's random classical music playing in certain parts of the park.
This campus is also home to Samsung Innovation Museum, which is open to the public.
Here, you’ll find not just the evolution of Samsung’s products but a history of technology in general.
Next, I head to another campus called Samsung Nano City.
It’s home to Samsung’s semiconductor division.
This campus alone is home to 40,000 employees and has 12 cafeterias.
This building behind me is where semiconductor chips are made by Samsung,
things that go into consumer electronics like your smartphone.
Last year, Samsung became the world’s largest chipmaker by revenue.
According to reports, for every $1,000 iPhone X that Apple sells,
Samsung makes $110 through its chips in the phone.
These are the buildings of Samsung's Research and Development Center for its microchips.
There's 14,000 employees working in these three buildings but because it's so secretive,
well, I don't have any access beyond this lobby.
I'm ending the tour at Samsung's R&D campus.
It’s about a 45-minute drive from Nano City.
Here's where a lot of the design work is done.
Samsung says about one fifth of its global workforce is dedicated to research and development.
That’s more than 65,000 people.
To encourage creativity, there's a library where designers and employees
can come to brainstorm and find inspiration.
My last stop is at what’s called Samsung’s Sound Lab.
It has everything from music equipment to voice booths,
where they record voices of Samsung’s smartphone virtual assistant, Bixby.
All the sounds are created for things you wouldn’t even think off, like when you charge your phone,
unplug your phone from the charger, when you open the refrigerator
or when the refrigerator has been open for more than a minute long.
It’s a term called Sonic Branding.
They even came up with the sound of Samsung Pay,
which was meant to mimic the sound of a credit card being pulled out of a wallet.
And then there’s the sound they created of a Samsung air conditioner turning off.
And I guess that’s my cue to wrap up this tour.
Hey guys, it's Uptin. Thanks for watching!
Check out my tour inside Baidu's campus and Huawei's campus and see how they compare to Samsung.
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