---
title: "Which came first, Coca-Cola or Samsung?"
description: "Coca-Cola vs Samsung: Coca-Cola came first, by 52 years — 1886 against 1938. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/coca-cola-vs-samsung/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Coca-Cola or Samsung?

**Which came first, Coca-Cola or Samsung?: Coca-Cola**

1886 — 52 years before Samsung

Coca-Cola came first, by 52 years. John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta.

## Side by side

|  | Coca-Cola | Samsung |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1886 | 1938 |
| Date | 1886-05-08 | 1938-03-01 |
| Category | company | company |
| What happened | John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta. | Lee Byung-chul opened a trading company in Daegu, Korea. |

## Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola went on sale in May 1886 as a patent medicine, selling about nine glasses a day in its first year. Pemberton sold the rights for a few thousand dollars and died in 1888 without seeing any of it. Pepsi followed in 1893 under the name Brad's Drink, renamed Pepsi-Cola in 1898 — so Coke is seven years older, and both are older than the Ford Motor Company.

## Samsung

Samsung began in 1938 as a grocery trading company dealing in dried fish, vegetables and noodles, which it exported to Manchuria. It moved into textiles, insurance and retail before making its first electronic product — a black-and-white television — in 1970. The name means "three stars".

## Common questions

### Which came first, Coca-Cola or Samsung?

Coca-Cola, by 52 years — 1886 against 1938.

### When did Coca-Cola start?

1886. John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta.

### When did Samsung start?

1938. Lee Byung-chul opened a trading company in Daegu, Korea.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]