By Kim Yoo-chul
Cheil Worldwide CEO Lim Dai-ki said Wednesday that its decision to acquire Founded, a creative agency with offices in London and San Francisco, will boost the company's presence in non-consumer marketing.
"Cheil Worldwide acquired Founded as planned as this deal will significantly boost Iris' expertise in B2B marketing and strategic planning," Lim told reporters.
He made the remarks on the sidelines of the weekly regular meeting of senior Samsung executives, held Wednesday at the Seocho Samsung Tower.
Cheil, an advertising arm of Samsung Group, itself owns Iris, McKinney and Barbarian Group.
The senior executive declined to specify terms of the Founded deal.
Established in 2012, Founded was named "Best Breakthrough Agency of the Year" last year. Its sales last year were $8.7 million, with the agency generating $2.2 million in operating profit.
However, some claim Cheil's acquisition of Founded was part of its strategy shift for international growth rather than selling its stake to the French company, as the talks were at one point stalled after Samsung and Publicis differed on the value of Cheil Worldwide stocks.
For example, Samsung Electronics spent $2.4 billion on global advertising in 2015.
Cheil's Iris has contracts with P&O Cruises, Uniqlo, HSS Hire, SAP, Financial Times, Moneycorp, WSAtkins, WePay, Capita and Zipcar as its clients, meaning that the alliance will also give Cheil greater access to those under the same network.
Galaxy S7 goes well
Separately, Samsung Electronics' mobile chief Ko Dong-jin told reporters that the company is positive about brisk sales of its latest flagship handsets ― Galaxy S7 and S7 edge ― in the United States.
"Samsung Electronics is still on track to continue the ‘one-plus-one' promotional event for American customers ― get another product free with one purchase. Samsung is positive about further healthy sales of S7 even after the promotion," the senior executive said. "This promotion is led by mobile carriers."
Verizon Wireless, America's top mobile carrier, has joined with Sprint and T-Mobile for the special deal. A customer using AT&T's networks can get Samsung's 48-inch flat-screen TV with one S7 purchase this month.
Counterpoint Research, a market research firm, said the S7 sold 26 percent more than its predecessor Galaxy S6 for the first month since the device's debut.
The company's semiconductor chief Kim Ki-nam made clear that the market leader Samsung is developing next-generation memory chip variants such as MRAM and ReRAM.
"Yes, Samsung will commercialize MRAMs and ReRAMs according to our own schedule. We are on our way and will be ready soon," Kim told reporters.
MRAM is an upgraded version of DRAM with advantages in data-processing speed.
Also, unlike conventional DRAMs, MRAM can store information in digital devices even when switched off. ReRAM enhances speed and efficiency more than today's NAND flash memory chips.