Samsung, the South Korean electronics giant — which already makes popular but recently problem-plagued smartphones — said on Monday that it had agreed to buy Harman International Industries, an American automotive technology company, in an ambitious push into a whole different kind of mobile. Harman is best known for making car audio systems under brand names popular with audiophiles such as Harman/Kardon and JBL. But Harman’s appeal to Samsung comes from what it calls its connected car business — an operation that supplies a car’s navigation services, its onboard entertainment systems and its connectivity to the rest of the world.
The deal marks the latest ambitious foray by an established name in the technology world into a new generation of smart objects sometimes collectively called the Internet of things. Under this vision, everything from home security systems to refrigerators will be connected to the Internet, gathering data and controllable at the touch of a smartphone icon. Much of that focus has come down to cars. Last month, the American chip maker Qualcomm agreed to acquire NXP Semiconductors for $38.5 billion, which would give it a presence in the market for making a new generation of chips for smart cars.
With cars likely to get more screens and more computers, the purchase gives Samsung a stake in what could be an industrywide boom. It also could provide insight for the company’s varied components businesses. Samsung can learn firsthand from Harman what it needs to do to sell its screens, chips and memory to carmakers.
