Samsung 🇰🇷

Samsung Electronics, founded in 1969 in Suwon, launched its first air conditioner in May 1974, a window unit that followed the first frost‑free refrigerator from Korea presented three months earlier. In 1975 it started production of room units and, according to the official chronology of the climate control division, in 1985 the domestic inverter, floor‑standing and compact equipment, barely four years after the Japanese pioneer. In 1992 it began manufacturing air‑conditioning systems for buildings and in 2000 the DVM, its VRF, was born, with production in Suzhou (China) from that year and later factories in Thailand, Brazil and India.

The arrival in Spain was early and very physical: in 1990 Samsung Electronics Sociedad Anónima (SESA) was established, with headquarters in Barcelona and 60 employees who set up the country's first video player production line. The Palau‑solità i Plegamans plant became Samsung's major European export hub, and video was joined by microwaves, computing, medical equipment and air conditioning. Thus, throughout the nineties, Korean splits, cheaper than the Japanese ones, began to compete in Spanish retail displays and were installed in apartments and businesses. In 2006 the Spanish headquarters moved to Madrid, and in 2020 the company celebrated its 30 years in the country.

In Europe Samsung entered the commercial air‑conditioning market in 2005 and in 2017 opened Samsung Electronics Air Conditioner Europe in Amsterdam. Its most recognizable product is the WindFree, launched in January 2016 as the world’s first “wind‑free” split: it cools quickly with conventional outlets and then maintains the temperature by diffusing air through thousands of micro‑holes in the panel; in 2017 the wall‑mounted version arrived and in 2018 the artificial‑intelligence modes, and in 2026 the brand celebrated ten years of WindFree with more than 20 million units sold.

Pending verification

The exact year the first Samsung split was sold in Spain and whether air‑conditioning units were manufactured at the Palau plant (the sources only cite air‑conditioning among SESA’s business lines).

History machine-translated from Spanish. Can you improve it? Write to us. hola@frostalgia.com