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HP acquires Samsung's printer business, unveils next-gen A3 portfolio

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Boston (Massachusetts), Sep 12 

In the largest ever print acquisition in HP Inc's history to accelerate growth opportunities in the copier segment, the company on Monday announced to acquire Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's printer business for $1.05 billion, besides launching 16 new LaserJet and PageWide Platforms based on the multi-function printing (MFPs) technology here.

The acquisition, which aims at reinventing and replacing service-intensive copiers with superior MFP technology, positions HP to disrupt the $55 billion copier industry -- a segment that has not been innovated in decades.

"When we became a separate company just 10 months ago, it enabled us to become nimble and focus on accelerating growth and reinventing industries," said Dion Weisler, President and CEO of HP, at the jam-packed HP's Global Partner Conference (GPC) 2016 at the Boston Conference and Exhibition Centre (BCEC) here.

"We are doing this with 3D printing and the disruption of the $12 trillion traditional manufacturing industry, and now we are going after the $55 billion copier space," Weisler announced.

The transaction is expected to close within 12 months.

Integrating the Samsung printer business' products, including their mobile-first and cloud-first user experience, with HP's next-generation PageWide technologies is set to create a breakthrough portfolio of printing solutions with the industry's best device, document and data security.

"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," Weisler said.

The acquisition strengthens HP's leading laser printing portfolio that has been established with Canon, and paves the way for future printing innovation.

"The new HP A3 portfolio and channel programme will empower HP's partners in the Asia-Pacific region where we are aggressively pursuing growth through innovation and contractual services," Richard Bailey, President, Asia Pacific & Japan at HP Inc, told IANS.

Samsung's printer business also brings an intellectual property portfolio of more than 6,500 printing patents and a workforce that includes nearly 1,300 researchers and engineers.

"HP Inc. has been a valued partner and customer of Samsung. We can now leverage our combined capacity for innovation to further enhance the value of our relationship," said Oh-Hyun Kwon, Vice Chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

Acquiring Samsung's printer business will also strengthen HP's ability to service customers in global laser printing, a category where it has enjoyed a mutually beneficial partnership with Canon for more than three decades.

"HP and Canon have long discussed print innovation to create customer value in business printing and in the growing MPS market. This transaction will further evolve our collaboration and bring about growth for both of our companies," said Fujio Mitarai, Chairman and CEO of Canon Inc.

Calling the new LaserJet and PageWide platforms a "real disruptive play", Enrique Lores, President, Imaging & Printing, HP Inc, said that HP can now deliver the industry's most advanced lineup of A3 MFP and A4 laser print solutions for the office.

"The complexity of traditional copiers makes repair and maintenance too inefficient for our partners and customers," added Lores.

"By leveraging our superior printing technology, we can change the status quo with next generation A3 multi-function printers that improve the overall customer and partner experience. This is what we mean by reinventing printing," Lores told the audience.

The 16 HP PageWide and LaserJet platforms bring innovation to the copier segment with world class print security across devices, documents and data.

The devices have advanced monitoring based on Cloud and big-data analytics to predict service and supply needs.

"The new HP A3 portfolio and channel programme will empower HP's partners in a region where we are aggressively pursuing growth through innovation and contractual services," noted Richard Bailey, President, Asia Pacific & Japan at HP Inc.

HP also announced a multi-year agreement to deploy Microsoft Dynamics customer relation management (CRM) online to HP employees in order to enhance collaboration across marketing, sales and service operations.

(Nishant Arora can be contacted at [email protected])