HP Wants To Disrupt Copier Industry With $1 Billion Purchase Of Samsung Printer Division
HP just made a rather large acquisition -- the company announced that it is purchasing Samsung’s printer business for $1.05 billion. The agreement was presented at Samsung Electronics’ Board of Directors meeting in Seoul, South Korea.
Dion Weisler, president and CEO of HP, remarked, “When we became a separate company just 10 months ago, it enabled us to become nimble and focus on accelerating growth and reinventing industries...The acquisition of Samsung’s printer business allows us to deliver print innovation and create entirely new business opportunities with far better efficiency, security, and economics for customers.”
Samsung will spin off its Printing Business Unit into a separate company on November 1st as long as the shareholders agree to the arrangement. It will then sell a 100 percent stake of the company and its overseas assets to HP. Samsung has also agreed to make a $100 million to $300 million equity investment in HP. The transaction is expected to close within one year.
HP will gain 6,000 employees, 50 sales offices around the globe, 6,500 printing patents, 1,300 researchers, and a production base in China. Samsung will source its printers from HP and continue to market in Korea under the Samsung brand.
The company is particularly focused on replacing copiers with multi-function printer (MFP) technology. Samsung has developed a “formidable portfolio of A3 MFPs that deliver the performance of copiers with the power, simplicity, reliability and ease-of-use of printers and with as few as seven replaceable parts.”
HP plans to integrate its PageWide technologies with Samsung’s mobile and cloud products as well. It also wants to expand global laser printing. HP hopes that with these developments that it will “disrupt and reinvent the $55 billion USD copier industry, a segment that hasn’t innovated in decades”.
Last year, Samsung’s printing unit earned 2 trillion KRW or a little over $18 billion.
