Diversification
Amidst the ongoing slump in the semiconductor industry, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are expanding their overseas automotive electronics markets by selecting the automotive electronics business as their new growth driver.
According to foreign media outlets and industry sources on April 12, Harman, an automotive electronic business subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, will open an automotive engineering center in Chennai in the state of Tamil Nadu in India in the second quarter of this year. The company plans to employ around 200 people in the first year of opening by actively utilizing a talent pool of researchers, including automobile engineers.
The automotive electronics business is called a post-semiconductor business. Companies have recently begun actively investing in the automotive electronics business. According to market research firm Strategy Analytics, the global electric vehicle market is expected to exceed US$400 billion (567 trillion won) in 2024 and US$700 billion (993 trillion won) in 2028.
Harman had been running a car business in India even before it was acquired by Samsung. Established in 2009, the Harman India R&D Center employs over 10,000 people which account for one-third of Harman’s total workforce.
After being acquired by Samsung, Harman is expanding synergies by combining its capabilities with Samsung Electronics’ IT technology capabilities in earnest. For the first time in the automotive electronics industry, it launched an automotive 5G telematics control unit (TCU), which belongs to the core of connections among homes, mobile devices, and cars, and is maintaining the industry’s No. 1 position in the automotive infotainment field.
LG Electronics recently opened a Vietnamese R&D corporation in Hanoi, Vietnam, which is responsible for developing and testing vehicle infotainment system software.
Its strategy is to secure professional human resources and further strengthen operations through the establishment of the R&D corporation. It plans to increase the number of developers related to electronic components at the R&D corporation to 1,000 by 2024, a more than 30% increase.
After establishing the Hanoi Electric R&D Center under its Vietnamese production corporation in 2016, LG Electronics has continuously strengthened R&D for the automotive electronics business in Vietnam such as opening a branch of the R&D center in Da Nang in 2020.
Since 2021, LG Electronics has been concentrating on fostering and securing talented people by operating industry-college cooperation programs, such as providing scholarships for college students and guaranteeing their employment after their graduation in Da Nang and nearby areas.