All Samsung Electronics Co. products will be Internet-ready within five years as Asia’s biggest consumer-electronics company focuses on the growing businesses of smart homes and smart cars.
The world’s biggest maker of TVs will only sell Web-connected sets by 2017, Co-Chief Executive Officer Yoon Boo Keun said at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Samsung also will invest more than $100 million in developers this year to accelerate its plans, Yoon said.
Samsung is reinventing itself as a purveyor of Internet-connected appliances and wearable devices to grab share of a market that may be worth $7.1 trillion by 2020. The changes come as the controlling Lee family shifts to a new generation of leadership and as earnings plunge because Galaxy smartphones are being squeezed by devices from Apple Inc. (AAPL:US) and low-cost Chinese competitors.
