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Samsung has sold off its printer business to fellow manufacturer HP in a deal worth around £760 million.
The deal includes the large number of patents Samsung has on printer technology – reportedly around 6,500 – and it’s also the largest acquisition ever made in the world of printers.
According to the Wall Street Journal, some 6,000 Samsung employees, around 25% of which are engineers, will also move across to HP as the industry receives its biggest shake-up in decades.
HP said Samsung had a “formidable portfolio” of printers and planned to merge it with its own technology in order to create a “breakthrough portfolio of printing solutions with the industry’s best device, document, and data security”.
HP president Dion Weisler added: “When we became a separate company just 10 months ago, it enabled us to become nimble and focus on accelerating growth and reinventing industries.
“We are doing this with 3D printing and the disruption of the $12 trillion (£9 trillion) traditional manufacturing industry, and now we are going after the $55 billion (£41 billion) copier space.”
As part of the deal, Samsung has also confirmed it will invest between £75 million and £225 million in equity into HP once the acquisition has been completed, which is expected to be next year.
