Samsung Electronics has announced that it will spend $8 billion to purchase Harman International Industries Inc, a company which designs and manufactures connected automobile infotainment systems. The buyout of Harman is Samsung's "largest ever overseas acquisition" and sets up the company to become the "go-to supplier" for automobile accessories and systems (via Bloomberg).

Harman's customers, including BMW, Volkswagen, and General Motors Co., will now become clients of Samsung following the acquisition, placing the South Korean company in the "top ranks of auto technology suppliers." Harman is a major home audio company as well, with products under brands like JBL, Infinity, Harman/Kardon, and more.

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The announcement comes a few days after Jay Y. Lee officially became the vice chairman on Samsung's board. According to analyst Park Kang-ho, the acquisition is the first of many moves that solidifies Samsung's "life after smartphones," which Kang-ho believes to be electric vehicles.

“This is the first deal cut after Jay Y. joined the board and shows his management style is different from his father. He is an aggressive deal maker,” said Park Kang-ho, an analyst with Daishin Securities Co. “In the longer term, Samsung is thinking that life after smartphones is electric vehicles.”

Samsung previously purchased a stake in Chinese electric-car maker BYD Co., but its automotive aspirations appear to momentarily focus solely on continuing its history as a components manufacturer, rather than entering the market with its own vehicle. With Harman, Samsung could produce new products for internet-connected cars with attention focused on navigation, multimedia entertainment, security systems and analytics tools.

“Harman perfectly complements Samsung in terms of technologies, products and solutions, and joining forces is a natural extension of the automotive strategy we have been pursuing for some time,” Vice Chairman Kwon Oh-hyun said in the statement. “Harman immediately establishes a strong foundation for Samsung to grow our automotive platform.”

Besides expanding the scope of Samsung's future, the Harman acquisition could also help the company find its "next leg of growth" and move away from a reliance on smartphone sales, made worse this year by the Galaxy Note 7 recall. In total, market research firm IDC estimated that Samsung shipped 72.5 million smartphones in Q3 2016, which was down 13.5% compared to the estimated 83.8 million smartphones it shipped in the same quarter in 2015.

Tag: Samsung

Top Rated Comments

Keniutek Avatar
83 months ago
Better than buying Beats...
:P
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gmcalpin Avatar
83 months ago
I see no Harman this acquisition!
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Opieap13 Avatar
83 months ago
Samsungs phones are the bomb. Samsungs washers are explosive.
Now wait till you get a Samsung car they are to die for
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
enthusiastic Avatar
83 months ago
Playing window blasting music takes on a whole new meaning now.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mac Fly (film) Avatar
83 months ago
Next up sTunes, sMusic, Samsung buys Sennheiser for $3B and then releases their own muckOS for their own line of vertically integrated desktop and notebook computers.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
69Mustang Avatar
83 months ago
The possible effect on CarPlay was the first thing that I thought of when hearing this as well. I wish Apple had concentrated on car/mobile entertainment systems (and getting auto makers to offer Apples ) rather than whatever the Apple Car project was/is/ends up being.
There's no effect on CarPlay. That's not how this works.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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