The Corporate Vice President of Samsung in ESADE: "100% of Samsung products will be connective by 2020"

‘By 2017, we want 90% of Samsung devices to have and acquire Internet of Things (IoT) properties, and we want 100% to have IoT-connectivity by 2020’, explained Celestino García, Corporate Vice President of Samsung Spain, today at the most recent session of Matins ESADE, sponsored by EY (formerly Ernst & Young) with the collaboration of La Vanguardia.

The Samsung executive discussed how the IoT is here to stay and the importance of smart technology as a key catalyst of the new economy, to the extent that it is set to become the industrial revolution of the 21st century.

Sensors and chips

‘Sensors and chips are what make technology possible’, García noted. ‘Sensors are undergoing a genuine revolution. They used to be expensive components that could only be included in high-end products, but Samsung has managed to offer access to sensors in multiple, orderly and, most importantly, affordable ways’, he said. ‘We are developing sensors to identify smells and detect motion: we are working on ways to collect top-quality data on what is going on around a person in real life’, he underscored. 

With regard to chips, García explained, ‘We are trying to develop chips with small components and high performance and functionality, such as embedded Package on Package (ePoP) chips and 45 nanometre ones.’ He added, ‘This is where the range of devices we are working on comes into play: the aim is to equip each product with exactly what it needs’.

During the talk, García also stressed that Samsung supports developer initiatives. ‘In 2015, we invested more than 100 million dollars to promote and encourage the entire developer community; in 2016, we will invest even more.’ He continued, ‘We are obsessed with promoting a free and open world – we are adding multi-platform solutions – and if we want the community to be open, we need partners and collaborators, even if they are coopetitors.’ The term coopetitor, he explained, refers to someone who ‘cooperates in the morning and competes in the afternoon’.

Marketing of devices

At the Matins ESADE session, the Corporate Vice President of Samsung Spain highlighted that ‘Samsung manufactured and delivered more than 665 million devices last year’. In other words, ‘We deliver and sell 20 devices a second.’

When asked about Samsung’s approach towards machine-to-machine (M2M) payments, he explained that ‘Samsung is not interested in that business and has taken a neutral stance towards it’. Thus, it earns nothing from Samsung Pay transactions, nor does it store any of the resulting data.

In this regard, García noted that his company has certified maximum security and stressed the importance of ‘demanding a certain level of cyber security from the government’. ‘Everyone is free to choose what they want or do not want to do with IoT technology’. In that regard, he summarized, ‘the word “digitalization” falls short when discussing the Internet of Things’, Moreover, ‘Technology does not ask permission. As companies, regulators and institutions, we have to adapt to it’.