Samsung not buying Motorola's device business

BARCELONA, SPAIN--Over the past weeks, speculation has been rife about Motorola exiting the handset business. This would mean the device division would be separated from the company, and this has stirred up rumors of other manufacturers buying it over. Reports have indicated that both Sony Ericsson and LG are not interested buyers, and in an interview, CEO of Samsung for Southeast Asia and Oceania Park Sang Jin revealed that the chaebol is of the same persuasion.

According to Park, Motorola has "contacted us, but we are in duplication in many areas, (so) it could not be a good marriage". He went on to add that Motorola is a great company and he hopes it will recover and continue to be a competitor.

Motorola has a significant share in the emerging markets with quite a number of low-cost handsets in its portfolio. While this would align well with Samsung's strategy for growing in the low-end market in 2008, Park also said that the Samsung wants to focus on just a few models and to be more efficient in making them cheaper rather than to have many different models. This lends further weight to Samsung's decision not to consider the Motorola device business as a means of gaining market share.