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Samsung Electronics showcases robots at CES 2022 in January South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. plans to develop metaverse and robot sectors for the global tech giant’s future while seeking acquisitions in the artificial intelligence, 5G and automotive electronics sectors.Samsung, the world’s top memory chipmaker, unveiled the long-term strategy on Wednesday in a general meeting of shareholders to alleviate concerns over a lack of fresh growth engines that has been weighing on its share price.“The first step for the discovery of new business is the robot sector,” Samsung’s Vice Chairman and Co-CEO Han Jong-hee said in the meeting held in Suwon where the company’s headquarters are located. “We are promoting robots as a new business by enhancing a dedicated organization since we consider the sector as a new opportunity area for customer contacts.”Han also emphasized its focus on metaverse, saying “we will develop optimized metaverse devices and solutions that will help customers experience metaverse anytime and anywhere.”In addition, Samsung is actively considering mergers and acquisitions in various sectors such as AI, 5G and automotive electronics that can lead to growth in the future, Han said.TO ALLEVIATE WORRIES ABOUT FUTURE GROWTHSamsung’s share ended up 1.29% to 70,400 won ($57.1) in Seoul’s main stock exchange after the comments. Analysts had pointed out a lack of future growth engines as a reason for sluggish performance in the company’s stock. Some criticized Samsung was negligent in preparing for the future compared to its competitors as it has not sought any significant acquisitions since 2016 when it took over Harman, a US electronics system maker, for $8 billion.Robots have often been mentioned as one of Samsung’s new growth sectors. Samsung is expected to start the robot business after tests of one year, industry sources speculated. The company established a task force for the business at the end of 2020 during its organization reshuffle and upgraded it as a team last year.“We will take the lead in accumulating robot technologies in various areas so that future generations can experience ‘life companion’ robots,” Han said.Samsung has been working on a launch of metaverse devices, Han already said at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2022 in Barcelona, Spain last month.Regarding its business in Russia given its invasion of Ukraine, Samsung will prepare steps to minimize the impact of the crisis, Han said.“We have suspended product shipments to Russia. We will make various contingency plans to minimize the impact on our business,” Han said. Samsung’s Vice Chairman and Co-CEO Han Jong-hee speaks at the general shareholders meeting on March 16, 2022. APOLOGY FOR GOS CONTROVERSYMeanwhile, Han apologized for the controversy over the game optimizing service (GOS) installed in the latest flagship smartphone series Galaxy S22.“Once again, we sincerely apologize for not understanding customers’ wishes from the beginning,” Han said.The GOS is pre-installed in Galaxy S22 models to optimize the performance of the central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) by preventing excessive heating when playing a game. The function stoked complaints about weak game performances among users.Earlier this month, Samsung said it will update software to give customers options to use the function.By Sin-Young Parknyusos@hankyung.comJongwoo Cheon edited this article.
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