Various senior Samsung executives have gone on record to say the audio market is a big focus for the company, which wants to be considered a "traditional audio brand", expand the sector and "improve the audio performance within it".
Speaking to trade title ERT, Samsung UK and Ireland president Andy Griffiths said: "We’re going to be big in audio and we’re going to grow that market. I’m thrilled that audio is going to make a comeback as a market – we’re giving it a lot of investment and a lot of resource."
Certainly the company's recent Shape Audio multi-room system impressed us, with the M5 and the M7 performing well as individual wireless speakers, too. Meanwhile, CES saw Samsung reveal a new range of omni-directional speakers, which will also work with the M Series speakers.
Improving audio performance
Michael Zoeller, Samsung’s European sales and marketing director for TV/AV, thinks Samsung should be considered as an audio brand: "I still feel Samsung has not been seen as a traditional audio brand. Maybe this is because of our strength in mobile and TV. But we are about to change that."
Robert King, vice-president of consumer electronics at Samsung UK and Ireland, added: "We see audio as a tremendous opportunity. The whole audio market is really regenerating with the emergence of the wireless, multi-room speaker set-up and how, where and when people want their music. We think there’s a great opportunity to expand that market and improve the audio performance within it."
It's fighting talk from a company that clearly has Sonos in its sights when it comes to the increasingly competitive multi-room audio market. And with Samsung reportedly spending $40 million per day on research and development, the audio arm of the electronics giant clearly won't be short of investment.
But whether it will be enough to deliver top-class audio products and change consumer perception is something that remains to be seen - although we certainly look forward to getting our hands on Samsung's new audio products and finding out...
MORE: Multi-room music systems - everything you need to know
[via ERT]
