Samsung buying Harmen group
Posted by: Finkfan on 14 November 2016
Samsung are buying the Harmen group for $8 billion. Is this a good or bad thing for the likes of Mark Levinson, Revel and Infinity?
As long as they leave those companies alone and operating under their current entities, I doubt anyone will notice any change.
This deal is putting Samsung in control of JBL®, Harman Kardon®, Mark Levinson®, AKG®, Lexicon®, Infinity®, and Revel®. The company also licenses Bowers & Wilkins® and Bang & Olufsen® brands for automotive.
Depends why they are buying it I guess, as a way of extending their presence into audio, or as a vehicles to push other technologies. I can't imagine they are trying to move competitors, because they aren't; or asset stripping because it is small beer compared to what Samsung own. Could be interesting if they entire hifi in a big way with their size and R&D budget
Does this put the Focal takeover to bed; or is it still alive and kicking.?
Not heard any more on the Focal rumour.
What's the Focal rumor? Samsung is buying Harman almost exclusively for their vehicle technology. Not to say they won't continue to be a big presense in Hi-Fi and other areas, but the big growth area is in-car tech where Harman is a leader.
DUPREE posted:Samsung is buying Harman almost exclusively for their vehicle technology. Not to say they won't continue to be a big presense in Hi-Fi and other areas, but the big growth area is in-car tech where Harman is a leader.
I have to agree. This deal is all about automotive platform independence and not Hi-Fi.
You can follow a direct line from Google slowly abandoning the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) in favour of Google Mobile Services (GMS) to Samsung investing in it's own platforms. A couple of weeks ago Samsung bought Viv so it can compete with Google Assistant, Cortana and Siri. Automotive is just the next step.
Google doesn't charge for GMS, but it is a proprietary OS like Windows or iOS. As Google places increasingly stringent controls on it and it's related services, OEMs like Samsung are worried they will be locked out unless they accept Google's demands. Unlike most Android OEMs, Samsung has the cash to try and create an independent future. Harman wont be the last acquisition Samsung makes in order to secure platform independence.
DUPREE posted:Samsung is buying Harman almost exclusively for their vehicle technology. Not to say they won't continue to be a big presense in Hi-Fi and other areas, but the big growth area is in-car tech where Harman is a leader.
From what I recall ... Harman group also includes quite extensive "Pro-audio" brands.
Crown, AKG, (part of) Lexicon and (parts of) JBL, Soundcraft and Martin (amongst other brands) would be missed in the pro-audio environment but I have no idea if they would fit in with Samsung's plans. Then as commented there are the high end audio brands such as Reveal, Mark Levinson, (other parts of) JBL, etc.
If Samsung are really only interested in automotive audio then I imagine there is going to be several companies up for sale.