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Yoon Boo-keun, CEO of Samsung CE |
"Though the IoT business has not been flourishing yet, we are gearing up for the IoT era by developing platforms, devices and sensors while acquiring businesses like Viv Labs, Joyent and Harman," Yoon said during a press conference at the Aria Hotel in Las Vegas, Wednesday.
Comparing the connected device business in the United States, where enterprises are running businesses for multimillion households, the CEO pointed out the IoT has not been fully activated in Korea because it has not been recognized by consumers, changing their lifestyle.
"Whereas the IoT business in Korea has remained slow in progress in the last two years, I believe it can jump exponentially in the future," he said.
Highlighting "connectivity" as one of the keywords of this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Yoon said the company will make all home appliances and digital devices interconnected through Wi-Fi and be controlled by a single, integrated application. According to the company, it plans to realize it by 2020.
Yoon also pledged to strengthen its business-to-business (B2B) drive in the IoT-based home appliance sector this year.
"Though we have not fully engaged in the B2B sector so far, we can boost it in the North American and European markets based on the recently integrated local subsidiary dedicated to air conditioner business," he said. "In particular, boosting the IoT and the B2B will be one of our biggest tasks of the year."
Also in line with such commitments, the company has adopted a two-track strategy of pushing Dacor, which it acquired in September, as a luxury brand while promoting Samsung as a premium brand offering latest technologies and design to strengthen its drive for the built-in home appliances market in North America. It plans to boost sales by more than 50 percent year-on-year in this sector.
Yoon has contributed to Samsung Electronics' eleventh consecutive winning of top perch in the global TV market dominance last year. Still, he said the company should not feel complacent and needs further innovations beyond the quality of images, solving user inconvenient to maintain the leadership.
