Competing for Market Leadership
Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, which have long competed in the electronics industry, are facing off in the automotive electronics market.
LG Electronics and its affiliates have started to expand their workforce in the field of electric vehicles (EVs), which has emerged as a cash cow. LG Electronics’ VS Division are recruiting automotive software (SW) engineers from Dec. 26 to Jan. 15. According to the job opportunity announcement, the company is hiring new employees in 16 domains including advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) cameras, connected car services and microcontroller units (MCUs).
LG Innotek, a parts and materials affiliate of LG Electronics, is also hiring new employees with master’s and doctoral degrees from overseas colleges and universities and industry-academia scholarship students in the fields of vehicle embedded SW, vehicle radar circuit design, vehicle networks and protocol development. Application deadline is Jan. 9.
LG Electronics subsidiaries’ move to strengthen their automotive electronics business is not only reflected in their hiring, but also in their booths at CES 2023.
LG Innotek has thus far invited only officials from its corporate customers to its booth at CES. This year, it plans to open a booth for the public for the first time and showcase autonomous driving and electric vehicle parts.
LG Display, which enjoys a 90 percent share of the automotive display market, will introduce various automotive displays optimized for future automobiles such as plastic OLED (P-OLED) displays and low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) LCDs.
Meanwhile, LG Electronics is scheduled to announce its provisional business results for the fourth quarter of 2022 this week. While the company's overall performance is expected to be sluggish, the VS Division is projected to post record operating profits of tens of billions of won, emerging as a new profit generator.
Samsung Group is also concentrating its efforts on strengthening the electric vehicle business, which has recently emerged as a major future growth driver. Samsung Electro-Mechanics, a parts affiliate of Samsung Electronics, plans to set up a private booth at CES2023.
Jang Duk-hyun, president of Samsung Electro-Mechanics, has declared that the company will shift its growth axis from mobile parts to automobile parts. In December 2022, the company revamped its organization to sharpen its competitiveness in the automotive electronics business. It launched the Optical Communication Solution Division in charge of camera modules, the Package Solution Division in charge of semiconductor substrates and the Component Division which produces multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs).
Samsung Group's automotive electronics business is carried out by Harman (automotive electronics and audio), Samsung Display (displays), Samsung SDS (logistics), Samsung SDI (batteries) and Samsung Electro-Mechanics (camera module MLCCs). At the center is Harman, a specialized electronics and audio company incorporated as a Samsung subsidiary in 2017.