Samsung Buys Harman for $8 Billion to Conquer Connected Car Industry

Samsung is a company that produces anything from washing machines and smartphones to processor chips and storage. The Korean tech giant has now announced plans to further its push into the automotive industry. Samsung said today it will be purchasing car and audio giant Harman for a whopping CAD $10.87 billion. The handset maker will be paying CAD $152 per share, a healthy 28% increase from Harman's current share price. The California-based firm is well known for its audio products which includes Harman Kardon, JBL, Mark Levions and AKG Acoustics. However, two-thirds of its business come from the auto industry. Harman is a market leader when it comes to connected car solutions with more than 30 million vehicles equipped with its connected car and auto system and Samsung wants a piece of it too. Samsung believes it is making a very good investment, since it predicts that the connected technologies marker will grow exponentially to $100 billion by 2025. And with Harman's tech strengths including infotainment, over-the-air updates and other telematics the future seems to be quite bright. The Korean tech giant hasn't explicitly said it plans to compete with Google's Android Auto or Apple's CarPlay, but it's pretty obvious this will be the case. Samsung has been dipping its fingers in the automotive industry before. A while ago the company unveiled Samsung Connect Auto, while supporting startups like Vinli that are trying to create a worthy app ecosystem for connected cars. The deal between the two companies will be finalized sometimes around mid-2017. Even if Samsung purchased Harman, the latter will remain a standalone subsidiary. [Samsung] The post Samsung Buys Harman for $8 Billion to Conquer Connected Car Industry appeared first on Android in Canada Blog. Android Match ae

	Manage this Applet