Despite its recent troubles that have put big dents in the company finances, Samsung is still out there sensibly living the business ethos of "you gotta spend money to make money," with the Korean firm recently acquiring audio company Harman for a cool $8bn.
On November 21, Samsung and Harman held a join press conference in Seoul, South Korea, where the duo outlined future plans and in doing so hinted that Harman audio capabilities could well find their way into Samsung's 2018 mobile portfolio.
Speaking to assembled press, Park Jong-hwan, Samsung's head of automotive, said, "It will take time for the acquisition process to be completed, including the planned shareholders’ vote. After that, we could ramp up efforts for business synergies. If we are to adopt Harman’s high-end audio technology for the Galaxy S series phone, the first model could come in 2018."
Samsung also clarified that it is not entering into the automative business, but will continue to develop "connected car" solutions.
Now, of course it's an assumption, but not an ill-educated one, that Samsung's lead model in 2018 will be its Galaxy S flagship brand, by then it'll be the Galaxy S9, as the Galaxy S8 is due to launch in February 2017. Not only that, but a Galaxy Note 9 seems another likely candidate, as it often piggybacks off major Galaxy S features introduced in the same model year.
Despite the Galaxy Note 7 "explosiongate" debacle, which saw the discontinuation of the handset and raised rumours about an axing of the brand altogether, it's understood Samsung plans to continue the brand in 2017 and probably 2018. Samsung recently announced an exchange program whereby Galaxy Note 7 owners could exchange their faulty units for a Galaxy S7 and would be guaraunteed an upgrade to the Galaxy S8 or Galaxy Note 8 on launch in 2017 while only paying 50% of the price of the Galaxy S7 for said uprade. Such a scheme, coming officially from Samsung, is practically concrete confirmation of its plans to produce both a Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8 next year.
by pbriden via Featured Articles
Posts
No comments: