Harman International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, acquired British hi-fi company Arcam this month, Samsung confirmed on Monday.
“It is true that Harman acquired Arcam in July to deliver the best sound quality to consumers,” said a Samsung official.
Arcam is one of the best known brands in hi-fi technology, which refers to high-quality reproduction of sound for home cinema, TVs, tablets, smartphones, streaming systems and speakers.
Through the acquisition, Arcam will now sit alongside several other Harman International brands that include AKG, Harman Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Mark Levinson and Revel.
Samsung remained cautious about linking the acquisition to any of its new businesses, saying “That is Harman’s decision as it operates as an independent entity (from Samsung).”
Still, the acquisition appears to be in line with the latest reports on Samsung’s developing a new artificial intelligence speaker powered by its virtual assistant Bixby. The project said to be codenamed Vega has reportedly been progressed for more than a year.
The speaker is slated to be unveiled in the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show to be held next year, according to local news outlets, although Samsung did not officially confirm the reports.
Last week, Samsung announced that it bought Greek text-to-speech technology firm Innoetics through Samsung Global Innovation Center, apparently to create synergies with Bixby, which is having difficulties processing natural language.
By Shin Ji-hye(
shinjh@heraldcorp.com)
