India a key innovation hub to serve global users: Samsung

As Samsung doubles down on its vast services portfolio, India has become the key innovation hub for creating top-of-the-line technological innovations that are now being rolled out to the global users across devices, according to a top company executive.

According to Won-Jin Lee, President and Global Head of the Service Business, Device experience Division at Samsung, India is a very important market for the company and Samsung is the only company that would actually mean this.

“I see a huge opportunity in India in terms of rolling out new services. There are enough technical innovations in the market. In many cases, we not only bring innovations to the Indian market but also seek innovations out of India,” Lee said. According to Lee, who oversees all facets of the high-growth DX division at Samsung and strengthens leadership position in media, game streaming and cross-platform advertising, the huge research and development centre in India is helping cement their global operations.

“There are engineers in India who are the key sources of innovation to serve the domestic market. We have several services that are very specific to India. In several cases, those ideas actually came from the engineers that we have in the country,” Lee stressed.

Not just working on the latest devices, engineers and researchers at Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore (SRI-B), the company's largest software R&D centre outside South Korea, are working on creating multi-device experiences between personal home and open ecosystem devices for the consumers in the country.

Samsung has created multiple devices that are in people's homes and in personal lives, be it smartphones, Galaxy Buds, Galaxy Watch, and Galaxy Tablets, and smart home devices like washing machines, refrigerators, family hubs, robot vacuum cleaners and smart televisions. There is also an open ecosystem for many third-party devices like door sensor, smart plug, LED light bulb to take consumer experience to another level.

According to Lee, during the last few years, the number of devices that are connected to the Internet has grown exponentially.

“This presents an opportunity for Samsung where we can sort of build a relationship with customers, get to know more about what they want from us and how they use certain products. This provides key inputs to enhance the product experience not only during the lifecycle of the product but for future products as well,” Lee explained.

Lee said that the company wants to make sure that its services from digital payments to streaming content are flawless across devices, be it Samsung TV, smartphones, wearables, smart home devices and so on. The SRI-Bangalore has more than 250 startups that it is connected with on how they can modify their products, their services, their experiences based on Samsung's consumer understanding and to match with its consumer needs. The engineers in India recently contributed to the development of seamless IoT (Internet of Things) device registration services known as "Calm Technology" and have been part of the team to achieve the world's first matter-certified IoT ecosystem device.