In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Samsung’s president of Media Solutions Center Wonpyo Hong announced that the manufacturer will be more active in mergers and acquisitions. He stated that location-based services are of an interest to Samsung considering its position as the world leader in smartphones. Hong also talked about the launch of Milk Music and announced that the service has 380,000 subscribers. Late last week, Samsung rolled out a subscription model for Milk Music, which allows for unlimited music streaming without ads for $3.99 a month. Hong said that while Milk Music is limited to certain Galaxy devices, the manufacturer is looking to bring more devices into the fold.
Hong also mentioned that Samsung would like to offer a common platform for all of its consumer devices that include mobiles, televisions and home appliances. Tizen has been often touted as the go-to platform for the manufacturer, but Hong mentioned that Samsung was not focused only on Tizen, and that HTML5 was also a contender. He said that in the end, customers are looking for a way to use their devices more effectively, and that the focus for Samsung is to integrate software with hardware. He said, “I don't necessarily think the name Tizen is an important brand to consumers. Integrating software with hardware to make a great product—that's what we want to communicate with consumers.” That doesn’t mean that Samsung is going to abandon Tizen. Far from it, as the manufacturer intends to launch two mobile handsets running Tizen later this quarter, in addition to more smartwatches running Tizen later this year.
