On the occasion of the Samsung IT Roadshow 2006, Vietnam Business Forum Magazine has an interview with Mr. Sang Youl Eom, General Director of Samsung Vina Electronics Co. about his new investment fields.
Can you give us the reason for Samsung’s decision to shift investment into the IT field at this point of time?
So far, Samsung is only known for making electronic products in Vietnam. Until now, over 40 per cent of enterprises in the country are using Samsung computer monitors. We recognised that the information technology market has huge potential; therefore, we have expanded our IT operations. We are also studying and developing PCs in Vietnam like notebooks, desktops and colour laser printers.
At present, how many IT products does Samsung have on the global market and on the Vietnamese market?
Currently, we have a wide range of IT products on the market, including LCDs, notebooks, laser printers and projectors. In Vietnam, Samsung has introduced major products: LCD monitors and laser printers. Monitors make up 65 per cent of Samsung’s total revenues, followed by hard disk drivers (HDD) with 20 per cent, and optical HDD and printers with 15 per cent. Notably, Samsung printers account for 12 per cent of the Vietnamese market shares while its monitors take up 46 per cent of the national market shares.
How do you assess the Vietnamese market? What is Samsung’s business strategy for this market?
In my opinion, Vietnam has great potential for IT products. First, the demand for PCs and laptops is on the rise. Second, the demand for LCD monitors is also increasing. As for the printer, users prefer the laser printer because the printing speed is much faster than the matrix printer. Developing many high-end products and technological solutions is the common strategy of Samsung.
In the past 10 years, Samsung has recorded great successes in the Vietnamese market with non-stop year-on-year increase. If the revenue from IT was more than US$33 million in 2004, it increased to US$45 million in 2005, or a rise of 36 per cent. We are setting up the development plan for the next 10 years, and in my opinion, Samsung will have more opportunities to enter the world market as Vietnam is preparing to join the WTO.
Can you unveil Samsung’s most prominent IT solutions that make Samsung’s surpass all long-standing rivals in the IT field?
In Vietnam, our dominating IT products are printers and LCDs. As to the printer, we are proud of our world’s smallest printer, Samsung CLP-300. As regards the LCD, Samsung 971P is a monitor with a resolution up to 1000.1 and a viewing angle of 1780/1780. In particular, Samsung will introduce the thin laptop Samsung X11 with a 14-inch display and a weight of 2.1kg.
With regard to new technologies, Samsung has MagicNettm technology, enabling the sending of contents from host computers to any monitors within the MagicNettm network. In addition, Samsung also has Confidential Print technology for security printing, USB Direct Print technology for direct printing from USB, SecuPrintTM technology to help network administrators to supervise and manage document printing. Monopoly NO NOISTM technology to help minimise noise during the printing process, Magic Speed technology for increasing displaying speed and reducing blurs for Samsung LCDs.
The most notable differences between Samsung products and its rivals are easy-to-use, noiseless and compact features in printers; high quality, sharpness and creativeness in LCDs; and multifunctional, thin and light laptops. Esentially, Samsung products have high-grade design (yet are easy to use) and low costs.
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