Samsung this week denied it is planning to sell its telecoms network equipment business, following press reports to the contrary.
"Some news media have contended that Samsung Electronics is considering to sell its network business, which manufactures mobile telecommunication systems," said Samsung, in a statement on Wednesday.
"However, Samsung Electronics has no intention to pull out from its network business," the company said.
Samsung includes the results of its networks arm within the IT & Mobile (IM) division, which also includes its handset business.
The company does not break out telco equipment revenues, but in the third quarter, mobile devices accounted for 25.94 trillion won (€21.26 billion) of the KRW26.61 trillion of revenue generated by Samsu ng’s IM division.
That leaves a modest KRW670 billion (€549.3 million) for the remaining parts of the division, including the networks arm. Nonetheless, Samsung said its network performance improved sequentially due to increased spending on LTE equipment by overseas operators.
"Samsung has strong business ties with major operators in the U.S., Japan, Korea, countries that have a leading LTE market, and we also have business relations with major operators in South Asia and Europe," Samsung said on Wednesday, adding that it invests tens of billions of dollars every year in areas including software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualisation (NFV) and 5G.
Indeed, Samsung counts SK Telecom as one of its major 5G research partners; the two have constructed a testbed at one of the latter’s R&D facilities for the purposes of testing millimetre wave (mmWave) spectrum for potential 5G access technologies.
"Samsung will continuously commit to bring advanced telecommunication technologies to the world," Samsung said.
