The biggest South Korean companies are the flagship subsidiaries of a handful of family-controlled conglomerates known as chaebols. Samsung, Hyundai Motor Group, SK Group, LG Corporation, Hanwha Group, POSCO Holdings, and Lotte Group together dominate the country’s economy, and the top ten business groups alone generate roughly 65 percent of national GDP. Each group spans dozens or hundreds of subsidiaries across unrelated industries, so the “company” you hear about is usually the best-known arm of a much larger empire.
Samsung Group
Samsung is the largest chaebol by every meaningful measure. Its flagship, Samsung Electronics, posted consolidated revenue of roughly KRW 333.6 trillion (about $235 billion) in fiscal year 2025, placing it among the highest-revenue technology companies on Earth.1Samsung Global Newsroom. Samsung Electronics Announces Fourth Quarter and FY 2025 Results The broader group includes Samsung Life Insurance, Samsung C&T, Samsung Heavy Industries, Samsung SDI, and dozens of other affiliates.
Semiconductors drive the valuation. Samsung Electronics held approximately 38.6 percent of the global DRAM memory chip market by revenue in the first quarter of 2026, the largest share among the three dominant producers.2Counterpoint Research. Global DRAM and HBM Market Share In February 2026, the company said it had begun mass production of HBM4, a next-generation high-bandwidth memory chip built for artificial intelligence workloads, and had shipped commercial products to GPU manufacturers and hyperscale data center operators.3Samsung Global Newsroom. Samsung Ships Industry-First Commercial HBM4 With Ultimate Performance for AI Computing
The rest of the group is nearly as sprawling as its electronics arm. Samsung C&T served as the main contractor on the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.4Samsung C&T. UAE Burj Khalifa – Building Portfolio Samsung Heavy Industries ranks among the world’s largest shipbuilders. Samsung Life Insurance managed total assets of about $241 billion as of 2024, one of the largest life insurers in Asia. Samsung SDI competes globally in electric vehicle batteries against LG Energy Solution and China’s CATL.
Hyundai Motor Group
Hyundai Motor Group is the world’s third-largest automaker by volume. Its two main brands, Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Corporation, sold a combined 7.27 million vehicles globally in 2025, and Kia has targeted 3.35 million units for 2026 alone.
What sets the group apart from most global automakers is vertical integration. Hyundai Steel supplies high-strength automotive plates to the assembly lines. Hyundai Mobis manufactures chassis modules and driver-assistance systems. Hyundai Glovis handles global vehicle logistics. That structure keeps costs down and gives the group unusual control over parts and shipping.
The Ulsan plant on South Korea’s southeastern coast is the world’s largest automobile factory, with capacity above 1.5 million vehicles per year, and it now includes a dedicated electric vehicle line.5Hyundai Motor. New EV-Dedicated Plant in Ulsan Hyundai Motor’s electrified vehicle sales approached one million units in 2025, and Kia has set a target of one million annual EV sales by 2030. Hyundai Engineering & Construction rounds out the group with bridges, buildings, and nuclear power plants.
SK Group
SK Group runs more than ninety subsidiaries across energy, semiconductors, telecommunications, and pharmaceuticals. It has pivoted hard toward the two sectors currently drawing the largest global capital flows: AI chips and batteries.
SK Hynix is the crown jewel. Samsung leads in conventional DRAM, but SK Hynix dominates high-bandwidth memory, holding roughly 62 percent of the HBM market as of mid-2025. That makes it a critical supplier to companies like NVIDIA. SK Hynix is also investing approximately $4 billion in an advanced packaging facility in West Lafayette, Indiana, with operations scheduled to begin in the second half of 2028.6SK hynix. SK hynix West Lafayette
SK Telecom is South Korea’s largest mobile carrier, though its subscriber share fell below 40 percent for the first time in 2025, to roughly 39 percent. SK Innovation manages refinery operations and battery manufacturing through SK On, and SK E&S focuses on natural gas and hydrogen. The diversification gives the group resilience across cycles, but semiconductors increasingly drive its valuation.
LG Corporation
LG is best known internationally for consumer electronics and EV batteries. LG Electronics remains a global leader in washing machines, refrigerators, and OLED televisions. The bigger recent growth story has been LG Energy Solution.
LG Energy Solution ranked third globally in EV battery usage through most of 2025, capturing roughly 11 percent of the worldwide market. The company operates a joint venture with General Motors called Ultium Cells and is building a standalone manufacturing complex in the Queen Creek area of Arizona. That Arizona facility, its second standalone U.S. plant, houses both a cylindrical battery plant for EVs and a separate facility for lithium iron phosphate energy storage batteries, with both expected to start production in 2026.7LG Energy Solution Newsroom. LG Energy Solution’s $5.5 Billion Stand-Alone Battery Manufacturing Complex Project in Arizona Well Underway
LG Chem supplies materials to LG Energy Solution and also produces petrochemicals, advanced materials, and pharmaceutical ingredients. LG Uplus operates as the group’s wireless carrier, competing with SK Telecom and KT Corporation.
Hanwha Group
Hanwha is South Korea’s seventh-largest business group, with total sales of approximately $64.1 billion as of 2024. Its mix of defense, solar, and ocean industries is unusual and puts it at the intersection of several long-term spending trends.
Hanwha Aerospace and the defense divisions manufacture artillery systems, missile components, and aircraft engines. Hanwha Ocean, formerly Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (acquired in 2023), produces commercial vessels, submarines, and destroyers. On the energy side, Hanwha Solutions’ Qcells division is one of the world’s largest solar module manufacturers, with significant U.S. capacity and operations across the Americas, Asia, and Europe. The group also runs petrochemical, life insurance, and retail businesses.
POSCO Holdings
POSCO Holdings posted consolidated revenue of KRW 69.1 trillion (roughly $49 billion) in 2025, cementing its position as one of the world’s largest steelmakers.8POSCO Newsroom. POSCO Holdings Posts KRW 69 Trillion in 2025 Sales It supplies steel plates for construction, shipbuilding, and automotive manufacturing across Asia and beyond.
The company has been diversifying into materials for the energy transition, especially lithium processing for EV batteries. POSCO has lithium extraction projects in Argentina and processing capacity in South Korea, giving it exposure to faster-growing demand than steel typically offers. POSCO Holdings trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker PKX, one of the more accessible South Korean industrial names for U.S. investors.
Lotte Group
Lotte Group operates primarily in retail, food, chemicals, and hospitality. It runs department stores, hotels, and duty-free shops across South Korea and Southeast Asia. Lotte Chemical is a significant petrochemical producer, and Lotte Chilsung Beverage is a major domestic food and drink company. Lotte lacks the global name recognition of Samsung or Hyundai but ranks among the largest employers in South Korea’s domestic service economy. The group has faced governance controversies in recent years, including public family succession disputes.
How U.S. Investors Buy South Korean Stocks
About ten to twelve South Korean companies trade on major U.S. exchanges through American Depositary Receipts. The most notable ADRs include POSCO Holdings (PKX on the NYSE), SK Telecom (SKM), KB Financial Group (KB), LG Display (LPL), KT Corporation (KT), and Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEP). Coupang (CPNG) is directly listed on the NYSE rather than through an ADR structure.
Samsung Electronics, despite being the largest company in South Korea, does not have a standard ADR on the major U.S. exchanges. U.S. investors who want Samsung exposure typically buy through South Korea-focused exchange-traded funds or open a brokerage account with access to the Korea Exchange.
Dividends from South Korean stocks are subject to withholding tax. For non-treaty investors, the rate is 20 percent. Under the U.S.-South Korea income tax treaty, the rate on dividends drops to 15 percent. To qualify for the treaty rate, the beneficial owner must submit documentation to the Korean paying entity, and as of January 2026, the withholding agent must file the application and supporting documents with the competent tax office by the end of February in the year following payment. Investors holding ADRs through U.S. brokerages generally have this handled automatically, but it’s worth confirming with your broker that the treaty rate is being applied rather than the full 20 percent.
The Korea Discount
South Korean equities have long traded at a persistent discount to global peers. The benchmark KOSPI index has averaged a price-to-book ratio around 0.99, meaning a large share of listed companies trade below the net value of their assets. Comparable indexes in the United States and Japan trade well above book value. The discount reflects several overlapping problems: average return on equity has hovered around 7 percent over the past decade, dividend payout ratios have been low by international standards, and minority shareholders in chaebol-affiliated firms have historically had limited ability to influence corporate decisions.
The government launched the Corporate Value-Up Program in early 2024 to address these issues, promoting improvements in capital efficiency, shareholder returns, and governance. It created the Korea Value-Up Index to highlight companies meeting specific governance criteria, and in February 2026, corporate tax laws were amended to require that high-dividend companies disclose Value-Up plans to keep receiving tax benefits. The banking sector’s total payout ratio is projected to rise from 36 percent in 2023 to more than 50 percent by 2026. Whether the program closes the discount depends on sustained follow-through, but early results have drawn increased foreign institutional interest into exactly the chaebol names above.