Guest post by Samsung has announced that it has acquired Harman, the company behind over 20 brands including audio companies AKG, JBL and Harman/Kardon, as well as a suite of connected car technologies.
Although you’re probably more familiar with Harman for their audio brands, the company earns around two thirds of its revenues from automotive-related segments where it produces telematics, security and ’embedded infotainment’ solutions.
That’s the end of a decent audio hardware manufacturer approaching then.
Samsung couldn’t make a cake without it falling to bits!
Quite a few respectable brands there – AKG, Mark Levinson, Revel, etc. Too bad they’ll all be relegated to playing cheesy K-Pop now.
Not QNX, it is in BlackBerry’s hands now.
Harman has deals in place with some big, global manufacturers such as BMW, Daimler, FIAT Chrysler, Tata, VW Group and Toyota – that brings a lot of big brands into Samsung’s portfolio.
Their infotainment platform can sit on QNX, Android, Linux and others while their other platforms use Linux. While Samsung could replace this with Tizen, I think the core strategy is to lock out competitors such as Apple and Google. As a company, Harman doesn’t seem to be worth more than a $1 billion, but as part of a larger strategy, maybe $8 billion makes more sense.
Regarding the minor part of Harman’s business, the audio side, I guess Samsung could use the name to add a bit of gloss to its electronics stuff (eg. Samsung TV with Harman Audio).
Samsung made a push into the automotive world last year, probably as a response to General Motors partnering with LG and a tougher mobile phone market. The purchase of Harman may have been a result of a lack of progress on the automotive side of things and the recent problems regarding the Note 7.
The company and their DBUS interfaces that managed to fuck up Jeep’s connected car being bought by the company that makes things explode. A winning combination.
There are also some lesser known brands in harman’s portfolio that have legacy designs that are worth tons.
I’m thinking names like Soundcraft, AKG, DBX, JBL, DOD, Allen & Heath … I think Harmon owns all those brands, and their legacy designs. There’s some great classic gear in that portfolio.
Side note — Harman and Pono had signed something to get ponoplayers in cars, suppose that’s dead now :-(.
If Samsung bought all of Harmon they just bought their way into pro audio in a major way, and yes car audio is theirs now.
Edited 2016-11-17 18:24 UTC