3 Minutes
Samsung is quietly stepping on the accelerator when it comes to acquisitions. After reorganizing its internal deal-making teams, the South Korean giant appears poised to buy businesses that could shape its next decade—especially in AI-driven infrastructure, health services, and platform tools.
A dedicated M&A unit signals faster dealmaking
Recent South Korean media reports reveal that Samsung Electronics has created a new business support division with a dedicated mergers and acquisitions team. The move is more than cosmetic: the company has reorganized its existing Task Force division—first launched in November 2017 after the Future Strategy Office was disbanded—and carved out a focused M&A arm to hunt for strategic targets.
That team is led by Ahn Joong-hyun, a Samsung president who played a key role in past successes like the Harman International acquisition. With experienced leadership in place, market watchers expect Samsung to step up the pace of dealmaking rather than pursue only opportunistic buys.
Why HVAC, health and AI are suddenly on Samsung's radar
Just last week Samsung closed on FlaktGroup Holding GmbH, a German ventilation specialist it had been negotiating with for about six months. The deal gives Samsung a foothold in the rapidly growing data center HVAC market—an area exploding thanks to huge demand for AI compute and the cooling challenges it creates.
But Samsung's ambitions go beyond hardware. The company has already expanded its services and ecosystem through targeted acquisitions: it acquired Harman to strengthen audio and connected-car capabilities, and bought U.S.-based Xhealth to broaden offerings within Samsung Health. Those moves show a playbook focused on bolstering platforms—AI, music streaming, health services, and professional tools—that keep users within Samsung's ecosystem.
Imagine data centers filled with racks of AI servers cooled by systems from a Samsung-owned ventilation firm, while developers use Samsung tools and services that tie into the company's devices and cloud. That kind of vertical integration is exactly what Samsung seems to be aiming for.
What to watch next
- New targets in AI and enterprise infrastructure: Expect more interest in companies that solve data center or AI compute challenges.
- Service and platform acquisitions: Music, health, and professional productivity tools could be on the buy list to strengthen Samsung's ecosystem.
- Faster M&A cadence: With a dedicated team and proven leadership, deals are likely to move from talks to closure more quickly than before.
Samsung's recent moves suggest a clearer strategy: build both the hardware and the services that surround AI and connected experiences. For investors, partners, and competitors, the question now is not whether Samsung will buy again—but what it will buy next.
Source: sammobile
Leave a Comment