Samsung Electronics on Monday said it has agreed to sell its printer business unit to U.S. personal-computer maker HP.
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Separately, HP Inc said it will buy Samsung Electronic’s printing business for $1.05 billion.
As part of the deal Samsung will still sell printers under its own brand in South Korea, sourcing them directly from HP Inc.
The acquisition is expected to close within 12 months and is subject to regulatory review.
Samsung’s printer business employs around 6000 people across 50 sales offices globally, and brought in 2 trillion Korean won (A$2.4 billion) in revenue past year.
Reports emerged last week that Samsung was considering selling its printer business to better focus on its core smartphone, television, and memory chip businesses.
The acquisition is the biggest since it split from Hewlett Packard Enterprise previous year to focus on personal computers and related hardware. It notes that 1,300 of the 6,000 employees include researchers and engineers with experience in laser printing, imaging electronics and printer supplies and accessories.
Nearly simultaneously with the $1.05 billion Samsung deal, HP launched an A3 portfolio containing 16 new next-generation HP PageWide and LaserJet platforms slated to go on sale in mid-2017. Samsung has a 4 percent share of the market. Samsung is in there and flogs A3 machines, which HP will acquire in the deal.
The merger opens up a path for HP to focus more on the copier market and get its hands on key laser-printing technology.
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HP would eliminate one of its printer rivals by acquiring Samsung’s printing business. But Samsung officials did not relate the sale to HP with the revenue loss from its phones. However, the printer business is in the B2B area in which it is hard to increase a share in the premium market, unlike other units in the CE division. In August it reported that printer revenues had fallen 14.3 percent year on year, dragging down overall performance in its third quarter.
