Samsung Electronics Co. is making aggressive moves in the business-to-business (B2B) market as a new driver for growth, as it faces challenges in the faltering smartphone sector, industry sources said Wednesday.
The world's top smartphone and memory chip maker is pushing for a deal with premium carmakers in North America and Europe to supply digital signage platforms.
Digital signage refers to large-sized commercial displays including outdoor advertising and hologram panels that use technologies such as liquid crystal displays (LCD) and light-emitting diodes (LED).
Samsung has set this year's target for overseas digital signage about 50 percent higher than a year earlier, company officials said. In 2013, it won 2,000 orders from European car manufacturers.
The tech giant's move came as a desperate effort to find a stable source of profit since the ailing smartphone business is taking its toll with a fall in global market share, sandwiched between Apple Inc.'s high-end strategy and cheaper products by Chinese rivals.
Early this month, Samsung said in the earnings guidance that third-quarter profit has likely plunged 60 percent from the previous year. It's set to release the final version on Thursday, which will hardly show a change in figures.
In a bid to brace against the rocky road, it signed a deal with Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group Corp. earlier this year to supply televisions to its hotel chains.
Samsung has also been selling hotel solution packages to five-star brands in China, including the Shanghai Shangri-la and Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong.
The tech firm has tapped into selling B2B services to health care, education, finance and government agencies in other countries and plans to expand the division in the future, company officials said. (Yonhap)
