Samsung Elec boosts robotics as key growth engine: Vice chairman

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s largest chip producer, will go all out to expand its robotics business, Vice Chairman and Co-CEO Han Jong-hee said at an event to introduce new products in Seoul on Tuesday.

“We are taking steps to make robotics Samsung’s new growth engine. Our R&D center Samsung Research is set to create a robot platform with engineers, while the Device eXperience (DX) division, the unit for mobile and consumer electronics, is running a robot business team,” said Han.

Samsung upgraded its robot task force unit to a robot business team in 2021 to diversify its money-makers beyond semiconductors, which account for around 60% of the company's entire operating profit.

In a bid to accelerate robot development, Samsung Electronics raised its ownership in Korean collaborative robot maker Rainbow Robotics from 10.3% to 14.99% on March 15. The electronics giant bought 913,939 shares in the robotics firm for 27.8 billion won ($21.3 million) through an off-the-market trade at the time.

Samsung also signed a call option contract, allowing it to buy stakes held by Rainbow’s largest shareholder and relevant parties first if they put their holdings up for sale. The chipmaker is understood to be looking to take over Rainbow in the future as exercising the call option rights will raise its ownership to 59.94%.

Samsung will launch robot EX1 later this year, the vice chairman said. The company hasn’t unveiled details on EX1, but industry watchers say the new wearable robot will assist users who have difficulty walking, running or standing up, and can also be used as a fitness device.

Meantime, Samsung Venture Investment Corp., the chipmaker’s venture capital arm focusing on small tech startups, said on Tuesday it has invested 3 billion won in Korean self-driving delivery robot maker Neubility.

Founded in 2017, Neubility has conducted robot delivery demonstrations in Seoul and Songdo, Incheon. The venture has been backed by C-Lab, Samsung's startup incubator, since 2021 and won a CES 2023 Innovation Award with its self-driving robot Neubie. 

Write to Ji-Eun Jeong at jeong@hankyung.com

Jihyun Kim edited this article.