A recent report had already indicated that multinational conglomerate Samsung was assembling an automotive team and now, the Suwon, South Korea-based company has just made it official. As per reports emanating out of the far East Asian country, the company announced on Wednesday that it will indeed be making a foray into the automotive electronic parts industry, although there’s no word if any timeframe was given for the same. The company however, made it pretty clear that it will not be re-entering the automobile industry after its aborted effort to do so in the mid-nineties. According to an official statement released by the company, “For the time being, the team will focus on in-vehicle infotainment and self-driving technology so that it can have sufficient business capabilities within a short period of time. Then, a number of projects will be in progress in cooperation with the other subsidiaries of the group in the fields of telematics, central information display, head-up display and many more”.
Samsung of course, has business interests spread across different industries far removed from one another. Most people but the most ardent follower of the company probably do not even realize that the company, best known for its Galaxy-branded smartphones these days, in actuality, is a huge conglomerate with its consumer electronics business being just a part of its vast business empire spanning its far-East Asian homeland and beyond. The firm happens to be not just the largest Android OEM in the world, but the largest semiconductor chip manufacturer as well – a position it has held since the early nineties. While the company’s consumer electronics business is what makes it a household name, the company also has a unit called Samsung Heavy Industries, which happens to be one of the largest shipbuilders in the world alongside the likes of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries from Japan and Samsung’s fellow South Korean rivals Hyundai Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Company.
As for Samsung’s entry into the automotive sector, the company becomes the latest in the line of prominent non-automotive companies to join the steady stream of technology giants like Google, Amazon and Apple, all of whom have taken a serious interest in the world of smart vehicles of late. While Google’s project is the most widely known, the other two aforementioned companies are also believed to be burning the midnight oil trying to make sure they don’t get left behind if and when smart, self-driving vehicles do make that transition from science fiction to everyday reality.