[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics has been actively seeking the merger and acquisition of start-ups over the past few years.

The list of its takeovers showed that the world’s largest electronics manufacturer has been focused on making a move into the software and cloud sectors and beefing up its presence in the business-to-business segment.


Since 2014, the Korean tech giant has acquired nine companies, including video app services developer firm SELBY in May 2014, SmartThings in August 2014, printing solution firm Simpress in January 2015, mobile payment firm LoopPay, and most recently cloud firm Joyent this month.

Among others, the takeover of LoopPay is well-known to the public as the U.S. start-up’s mobile payment technology is integrated into Samsung’s mobile payment system, Samsung Pay.

SmartThings is expected to play a crucial role in the electronics firm’s initiatives to connect home electronic devices with users.

“We work closely with start-ups to bring new software and services into Samsung, and one of the ways we do this is by driving strategic acquisitions,” said David Eun, the president of Samsung’s global innovation center, in a press release issued after the firm completed the acquisition of Joyent.

Samsung has been on a technology shopping spree since the dawn of the smartphone era.

The number of Samsung’s takeover deals announced from 2012 to 2013 increased to nine compared to four from 2009 to 2011.

The deals from 2012 to 2013 include U.S. cloud content service firm mSpot, solid state drive solution firm Nvelo and Dutch lithography system company ASML.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)