HARMAN, A wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co. has partnered with Samsung SmartThings to design and develop the SmartThings App, integrate third-party sensors and drive initiatives for IoT platform hub.

United States: HARMAN International, an organization focused on connected technologies for automotive, consumer and enterprise markets, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., recently announced its strategic partnership with Samsung SmartThings, which is the leader in consumer IoT technology. The partnership is between the Samsung SmartThings and HARMAN Connected Services (HCS), a division of HARMAN International.

To speed up the adoption of SmartThings ecosystem, the global team of HCS engineers will aid and development of the SmartThings application. Gartner, Inc. has estimated that by 2020, 20.4 billion smart devices will be used worldwide. Samsung leads the segment as the SmartThings platform is currently used by approximately 1 million homes while the SmartThings cloud is linked to over 10 million devices. Through this partnership, HARMAN and Samsung aim to increase the adoption and solution development across different industry verticals.

After the acquisition of HARMAN by Samsung, the companies have simultaneously worked towards creating and implementing cutting-edge technologies for different industries and customers. The new partnership demonstrates a successful relationship between HARMAN and Samsung to further transform the IoT and cloud space for the enterprise, the automotive OEM and End-Users.

The HARMAN Connected Services would provide assistance with the marketing of the SmartThings app, add third-party sensors into the SmartThings ecosystem, work on developing new features for the Cloud and team up to create the future plan for the hub, core and embedded components.

The CEO of Samsung SmartThings in an interview stated that it is very crucial for the company to be at the leading-edge of digital transformation and smart devices and through the partnering with HARMAN Connected Services, they can put forward the latest smart device innovations to the consumers directly.

The Senior Vice President and General Manager of HARMAN Connected Services further added that the company is elated to be an engineering partner for Samsung SmartThings. They aim to deliver the best consumer experience of design, data and devices. Through this partnership, the company is focused on bringing the next-generation IoT and cloud-based solutions for the customers.

According to TechSci Research, Internet of Things (IoT) is a continuous connected network system of embedded devices which allow communication without any human intervention. The services used to support essential features and components of IoT network are known as IoT services. The Global IoT services market has witnessed substantial growth over the past few years, due to the growing technological advancements, increasing initiatives for automating processes, and a flourishing consumer electronics industry. Additionally, the increased adoption of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) concept, rising smart transportation system market and rapidly growing volume of data generating the need for data analytics is expected to propel the growth of the global IoT services marketin the coming years.

According to the recently published report by TechSci Research, “Global Internet of Things (IoT) Services Market, By Type, By Application, By Region, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2011 - 2021”, Global IoT services market is projected to exhibit a CAGR of over 24% during 2016-2021, owing to rising internet and smartphone penetration, growing Industrial IoT (IIoT) adoption, coupled with increasing number of smart city projects across various countries. Managed services dominated global IoT services market in 2015 and the trend is anticipated to continue during the forecast period as well, owing to increasing number of government initiatives towards digitization and increasing IT spending on security services. Although, high demand for IoT services across the globe is emanating from healthcare, smart homes & buildings, smart cities, etc., manufacturing segment dominated global IoT services market in 2015, on account of rising need to reduce costs and increasing demand for data analytics.

According to TechSci Research, smart home refers to a residence which is equipped with computing and information technology devices, that anticipates and responds to the needs of the owner in an efficient and effective manner. The owner can monitor and control a variety of applications like lighting control, access control, fire detection, leak detection, energy efficiency, etc. from anywhere through their smartphones or internet. Smart homes use key cards or fingerprint identification over conventional locks, making it harder for someone to break-in. Growing awareness of energy efficiency among customers, increasing demand for real time home security, growing technological advancements are some of the factors that will propel the Global smart homes market in the coming years. Moreover, the booming Internet of Things (IOT) market, M2M communication market and increasing popularity of touchfree intuitive gesture control market, the global smart homes market is expected to how rapid development in the future years.

 According to the recently published report by TechSci Research, “Global Smart Homes Market, By Application, By Technology, By Region, Competition Forecast and Opportunities, 2011 – 2021”, the global smart homes market is projected to cross $ 60 billion by 2021. On the basis of application, the market has been segmented into five categories, namely, Energy Management Systems, Security & Access Control Systems, HVAC Control Systems, Entertainment Control Systems and Others. Among these categories, Energy Management Systems dominated the global smart homes market in 2015. With increasing government efforts to optimize energy consumption, the adoption of energy management systems is expected to further increase in the coming years. In 2015, North America dominated the global smart homes market, followed by Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa and South America.

Please follow our LinkedIn and Twitter pages to get live updates on market research insights and analysis.