Samsung Recently Purchased Auto Manufacturer Harman, but are they really going to Start Building cars?

Photo Crd: Newsdog

Samsung recently made their biggest acquisition ever shelling out a whopping $8 billion to get auto manufacturers Harman International Industries.

Naturally this led to questions as to whether Samsung were going into the car manufacturing business seeing as there had been hints that perhaps the South Korean firm were interested in it. 

But it seems Samsung might not be thinking about this at all as a recent Forbes interview with Samsung Electronics President and Chief Strategy Officer Young Sohn revealed that Samsung has no such plans.

Young Sohn was quick to mention that he is “not an auto guy” in the interview, but more of a “mobile, semiconductor and communications person.” 

He had this to say though “We are envisioning what happens in the future as similar to the smartphone experience.” The company aims to offer “the convenience and technology that can bring more relevant information to one’s driving experience” and ultimately Samsung could also work on a fully autonomous solution. 

So why did Samsung purchase Harman? Well according to Sohn the company has been looking at many options in regards to how to approach the market, and realized that it takes a long time to build a team and relationships in the automotive industry, which works in “very long business cycles”. However, Harman brings “tremendous customer relationship” Samsung doesn’t have in the industry; Harman has “a proven management team that has delivered over time and we like that consistent performance” and last but not least, Harman also “invested heavily in the areas of connected cloud, telematics, over-the-air updates and security.”

This said, according to Sohn Samsung “don’t really want to build cars.” Even though the company aims to become a bigger name in the car business, Sohn says that Samsung is “not interested in the more traditional area of business or technology, like power trains or seats or bodies” because Samsung can’t add value to these segments. 

What Samsung can do is add value is “in areas of transportation where we support an autonomous connected experience, electrification and better user experiences.” In other words, Samsung wants to help pushing cars into a future where smart vehicles are the norm, rather than building its own cars from the ground up, and the recent acquisitions are a way for the company to increase its influence and improve relationships in the automotive industry.

So Samsung may be getting into the auto industry with their purchase of Harman, but probably not in the sense we initially imagined.