In a bid to ‘disrupt and reinvent’ the copier and printer industry Hewlett-Packard brought Samsung’s printer business for $1.05 billion. The deal will see Samsung’s printer business stepping away from its parent company with HP taking full control of it. Samsung printers has a big Asia presence with a turnover of about $1.8 billion last year and has around 6500 patents attached to it.
HP aims to breathe new life into the stale and often ignored printer industry with the deal. “Copiers are outdated, complicated machines with dozens of replaceable parts requiring inefficient service and maintenance agreements. Customers are frequently frustrated with the number of visits needed to keep copier machines functioning,” said HP President and CEO Dion Weisler.
A few days ago, HP’s sister company sold its software business to UK tech company Micro Focus.
Hewlett-Packard had split into two businesses last year: HP Inc, which focuses on printers and computers; and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which will now focus on data storage.
“When we became a separate company just 10 months ago, it enabled us to become nimble and focus on accelerating growth and reinventing industries,” Weisler said.
Samsung’s printer division employs around 6,000 people — around 1,300 of whom are in R&D — with 50 sales offices across the world and a production base located in China.
