As many of you likely know, Samsung is more than just a smartphone maker. Samsung makes pretty much anything you can think of. Refrigerators, Washers, Dryers, Dishwashers, TV’s, laptops, processors and even auto parts. Samsung supplies semiconductors to a few automakers, with the most recent addition being Audi. Some of you may wonder why auto makers need semiconductors, and that’s to power the computers inside your car. Every car has a number of computers working together, these computers inform you of when your car needs its oil changed, it pops up the check engine light when there’s an issue, and even controls the media in the car. And thus car makers do need to use semi conductors in their models. Another market where Qualcomm has done pretty well in recent years.
Samsung has had competition lately from LG who is also headquartered in South Korea, in the car industry. It’s one of the few areas for Samsung that has been profitable for the company. In an era where growth is very minimal, it’s important for Samsung to take advantage of this business. With Samsung’s Chief executives Kwon Oh-hyun, Boo-keun, Shin Jong-kyun and the vice chairman Lee Jae-yong, meeting this week, the focus is going to be on the auto industry and increasing profitability from supplying parts to car makers worldwide.
It’s been reported that the company is already forming a team that will be heading up their auto part of the business and focus on making next-generation parts for auto makers. No word on what those “next generation” parts will be, however. There’s plenty of competition there, even with LG, who also does much more than makes smartphones and tablets. Just recently, it was announced that LG was working with GM to supply batteries for their electric car, the Chevy Bolt. Which is a pretty big deal for LG Chem, as it should be. So Samsung is already facing competition and they have barely even entered the market. But expect some steep competition between these two South Korean tech giants. Not that we haven’t already seen a ton of competition between these two already.