Taking 4th Place in Reform
- Samsung Electronics makes headway in AWSJ survey

Samsung Electronics took fourth place in the reform and 32nd in the company evaluation categories respectively in the Asian Wall Street Journal's survey on the most respected 200 companies in 2004. The company moved up two notches to place 11th in the most respected category. The business paper contacted 3,228 respondents for the survey and released the results on February 21st .
The electronics maker led all Korean companies for six years in a row proving once again that it is the top business firm in Korea.
Microsoft came in first place for 10 years in a row in the survey with BMW following in the second place jumping up from the 12 place last year. Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, and Sony followed the company in that order from third to fifth place.
Around 57 percent of the respondents had a positive economic outlook for this year, pointing out corruption and rises in production costs as two factors that would hamper business activities.
The factor that will have the most negative impact on the national economy will be corruption (57.1 percent), bureaucracy (49.5 percent), pollution (48.7 percent), and brain drain (47.5 percent). Factors endangering business and organization have been singled out as cost push (59.8 percent), slumping economy and personnel recruiting (50.8 percent).
The company overtook such industry dinosaurs as MS and Intel with its net profit of $10.5 billion, the newspaper reported.
But the paper said Samsung would have a hard time matching its performance of last year this year because of sliding prices of its core products such as LCD and chips. Some industry analysts said the company would do all right this year, too, as the prices of LCD and mobile phones would recover in the second half.
AWSJ said Samsung Electronics has been successful because it has been able to dominate markets for its core products such as memory chips and flat screens with its strong points being brand reform and the development of superb products.
The company clinched assurances for its products by placing fourth in the category of innovative in responding to customer needs, but it was noted that it should improve its financial soundness (40th) and good company reputation (32nd) because of poor performance of its affiliate Samsung Card Co.
POSCO came in second place in the most respected category followed by SK Telecom, which jumped 6 places last year from the 9th place in the previous year.
The most surprising development in the outcome of the survey was Apple's performance. The company jumped 46 places to rank 10th last year and industry sources attributed the result to the company's success with its i-pod computer.
Microsoft continued to stay on top of the list last year, too, for 10 years in a row in terms of growth vision and finances, with the second place taken by BMW by jumping 12 places in the previous year. The German automaker won top spots in reputation, products, and the quality of services to be in a position to threaten the reputation of MS.
Sony recaptured the 5th spot stepping up a notch last year from the previous year, ahead of any Japanese firms, while Toyota slipped three notches to take the 6th spot on the list. In Japan, Toyota stayed on top of the list beating Sony which took the second spot. nw