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Samsung Electronics, the world's largest maker of smartphoens and memory chips, said Wednesday that it will seek more mergers and acquisitions (M&A) down the road to boost new growth engines and strengthen the existing tech businesses.
"Over the past three years, (Samsung) has invested 1 billion U. S. dollars to acquire 14 firms in medical equipment, contents, services and software sectors to expand new businesses and strengthen capabilities of core businesses," Lee Sang-hoon, president of Samsung Electronics, said at a meeting with analysts and institutional investors.
Samsung will expand its M&A down the road, Lee said at the meeting, held for the first time since 2005 to make clear its management goals and strategies. Samsung has sought new growth engines to reduce high dependence on mobile business, which generates some 60 percent of its combined profit.
In 2002, the South Korean tech behemoth unveiled its long-term plan to inject 23.3 trillion won (around 21 billion U.S. dollars) by 2020 into five new businesses, or medical equipment, biomedicine, solar cell, vehicle battery and light-emitting diode (LED).
Lee Kun-hee, chairman of Samsung Electronics that is dominating the global IT industry, has repeatedly cautioned about the company's future, reflecting his unique consciousness of crisis and simultaneously urging his employees to act as if the company was on the verge of extinction.
Samsung has spent around 20 billion dollars a year since 2010 on facility investment, while running a large-sized research & development (R&D) team consisting of some 80,000 researchers in Samsung Electronics and Samsung Display.
Samsung's Vice Chairman Kwon Oh-hyun said at the meeting that the company set its target at 400 billion dollars in revenue by 2020, noting that the target would be met by the cited year if it grows at the current pace. The company recorded 201.1 trillion won (around 190 billion dollars) in sales in 2012.
