Samsung must change: Chambers

CHICAGO ― John Chambers, the chairman of Cisco, the world’s leading networking company, said manufacturing powerhouses in the IT sector including Samsung Electronics should constantly seek change in order to survive in the Internet of Things era.

“Every company, including Cisco, if we don’t change we will get left behind,” said Chambers at a press meeting of the Internet of Things World Forum in Chicago Thursday (local time), responding to a question about the fate of Samsung Electronics, which is struggling in the face of declining revenues. 

The South Korean smartphone-maker saw its third-quarter operating profit drop by around 60 percent to 4.1 trillion won ($3.85 billion) compared to the same period last year due to the sluggish performance of its flagship smartphone business.

The Cisco chairman did not elaborate on the changes that Samsung would have to implement to get back on track.

Vowing to maintain solid business ties with Korean companies including Samsung and LG, he praised South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s deep understanding of the importance of the IoT and the government’s efforts to embrace the technology as part of its creative economy policy.

Asked about the possibility of the IoT boom becoming a repeat of the dot-com bubble disaster of the ’90s, Chambers doubted that such a fiasco would reoccur.

“The market, however, should watch as there will be some companies that will have a good market cap but not achieve their financial goals,” he added.

Cisco held the second IoTWF in Chicago from Tuesday through Thursday, drawing more than 1,500 attendees including government officials and executives of private companies across the world.

The U.S. firm will hold the third IoT conference in Dubai next year.

By Kim Young-won, Korea Herald correspondent
(wone0102@heraldcorp.com)