Q&A technologyreseller.co.uk 25 could maintain product deliveries. Although we were impacted, we were impacted far less than we might have been and that was born out of our ability to adapt very quickly to changing market conditions. TR: Were you affected by logistics problems as well? AH: There were a couple of challenges, but they were the same ones that everyone else in the industry faced. COVID meant that many ships and containers were in the wrong place at the wrong time and then there was the unfortunate situation when the Ever Given got stuck in the Suez Canal, which backed everything up. That was a frustrating time, but one thing we did take from it was the realisation that we needed to invest further in our production capabilities within Europe to give us more control over road delivery. I’m pleased to say that earlier this year we opened a new facility in Hungary, which is now ramping up almost to full scale for our large format displays and our LED displays. That obviously has many benefits, in terms of logistics and the supply chain and sustainability. I can now sit down with customers and show them every mile that a product will take. While there are some things we can’t control, there are others that we can, and the total product mileage before a product reaches the customer is becoming more and more important. TR: There is a big push towards circular IT. Is that an option for displays, too, or do they tend not to get refurbished and reused? AH: It’s something we’re looking at and we’ve got a couple of partners at the moment to help us see where we can take this but displays tend to be run for several years and some customers will sweat their assets for far longer. You can take the displays out, you can look at refurbishing certain elements and then putting them back into particular markets, but it has to be done with caution because if it doesn’t work, there’s a risk to brand reputation. It’s something we’re evaluating at the moment, but it is still at the fledgling stage. TR: What for you are the main strengths of the Samsung brand in terms of displays? AH: I always focus on three key areas initially and move out from there. I would say Samsung as a brand is extremely agile – I have spoken about our decision to take out a chip from display manufacturing to ensure consistency of product delivery. Customer focus is a huge strength. Customers telling us what they want and why they want it, that voice of the customer, has led to things like our Kiosk products, our Flip interactive displays, the way we do touch interactivity, and entry into new markets. For example, we entered the kiosk market two or three years ago to enhance the experience of people going into spaces during the COVID period and to provide queue management and wayfinding so people felt safe moving into offices after lockdown. We have also strengthened our presence in the security sector with our command and control solutions and at ISE showed for the first time LED touch overlays that we worked on in partnership with another company partially for command and control purposes and partially for automotive design. The third of Samsung’s strengths, for me, is innovation represented by smart products like our Smart Monitors. During COVID, a lot of younger people and particularly younger families didn’t have space for a dedicated office and had to work at the kitchen table, at a kitchen work surface, basically wherever they could set themselves up. So, we came to market with a Smart Monitor that doubles as a business monitor during the day and as an entertainment hub at other times. TR: How have the changes you’ve mentioned impacted Samsung’s market share? AH: Our market share has remained very, very strong and pretty stable. Depending on whose numbers you look at and how you segment things, it generally ranges within just a couple of percentage points. On a pan-European quarterly basis we have around 53% to 57% market share in the corporate space in large format displays and our LED market share in the narrow pixel pitch sector has just gone up to 34%. TR: Is the market itself growing? AH: There is significant growth across the market, all the way across Europe, partially through pent-up demand from projects that have been postponed but also because more and more organisations now are recognising the benefits of moving to digital whether for sustainability or cost control reasons. So the market is growing. And one of the really interesting aspects to look at is how that total addressable market is expanding and where there is untapped demand or untapped opportunity. This takes us back to that earlier point about the importance of having a trusted relationship with the reseller network, because if you’ve got a good reseller network, they can go out there and start to open up these sectors. TR: At one point displays were just peripherals, but they’re now becoming much more integral to the whole solution, much more of an enabler than they were perceived to be in the past. AH: Definitely. If you go back a few years, a display was a rectangular object on a wall or the corner of a desk. It was nothing more than a mechanism for presenting information. Then, as we started to add things like system-on-chip for compute power, building that smart signage platform infrastructure and then starting to overlay touch, the display started to go from something that couldn’t do a great deal to something that is almost all-encompassing. The next piece for me is no longer just the display. It’s the connected meeting room. Look at the way Samsung devices in a domestic environment can all hang together – you’ve got smart fridges and smart washing machines and smart tumble dryers and smart kettles all connected through a Samsung infrastructure – and how we can move that into the corporate space to enhance smart meeting room capability and smart buildings. It’s no longer just about selling a product; it’s about being smarter and being more sustainable. So the market is growing. And one of the really interesting aspects to look at is how that total addressable market is expanding and where there is untapped demand or untapped opportunity
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