Acquisition Process in Progress
Samsung Electronics will be able to announce some good news regarding mergers and acquisitions (M&As) as an acquisition process is well underway, the company's vice chairman Han Jong-hee said in a news conference in Las Vegas on Jan. 6.
Han refrained from providing details about the matter, citing security, but said, "You may expect to hear some good news regarding the company's M&A deals."
At CES 2022 a year ago, Han publicly said that he would announce good news related to M&As. Yet, the company has not made any announcement regarding new acquisitions. Han explained that the acquisition process has been delayed due to unexpected issues such as the Russia-Ukraine war, lockdown in China and U.S.-China conflict.
"Now, each country is lifting the lockdown measures against COVID-19 and making efforts to restore daily life. I think we can expect some good news regarding the delayed M&A deal,” Han said.
Considering that Samsung Electronics did not pursue a large-scale M&A deal after acquiring Harman in 2016, expectations have been growing that the company will make a big deal. Some experts speculated that the company will promote a large-scale M&A deal as its chairman Lee Jae-yong was reinstated on Liberation Day in August 2022.
Industry insiders believe that Samsung Electronics should promote M&A deals in the system semiconductor domain. Samsung is the No. 1 player in the memory semiconductor field, but its market share in the system semiconductor field is less than 3 percent. The size of the system semiconductor market exceeds that of the memory semiconductor market. The global system semiconductor market in 2021 was valued at US$402.1 billion, dwarfing the size of the memory semiconductor market at US$153.8 billion (approximately 195 trillion won). Some observers even say that the size of the fabless system semiconductor market will become more than double that of the memory semiconductor market in 2025.