This file photo taken June 3, 2021, shows the corporate logo of Samsung Group at its office building in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SAN FRANCISCO/SEOUL, Feb. 2 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday it will collaborate with Qualcomm and Google to build an ecosystem for extended reality (XR).
Samsung announced the partnership at the Galaxy Unpacked event in San Francisco on Wednesday (local time), where it unveiled new Galaxy S flagship smartphones — the Galaxy S23 series.
“We will transform the future of the mobile industry by building the XR ecosystem together with Qualcomm and Google,” said Roh Tae-moon, president of Samsung Electronics’ Mobile eXperience business, at the event.
XR is an umbrella term covering virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).
“It will take time to introduce new products, but we will make progress and provide you with new updates,” he said, adding creating a new ecosystem cannot be done by Samsung alone and requires collaboration with strong partners.
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon and Senior Vice President of Android Hiroshi Lockheimer at Google appeared on stage alongside Roh to announce the news.
Amon said Samsung and Qualcomm have been working together to open a new world for XR experiences based on more than 25 years of partnership.
Lockheimer also emphasized the importance of collaboration with the two tech firms with state-of-the-art hardware and software technologies to bring to the world next-generation digital experiences.
The announcement did not include any specific products under development or a timeline for them, but industry experts speculate Samsung might develop XR headsets built on Qualcomm’s chipset and Google’s operating system.
It also came amid speculation that Samsung’s rival Apple could launch its first virtual reality headset as early as this spring.
Samsung is no stranger to the wearable market. It released the virtual reality headset Gear VR in collaboration with Oculus VR in 2015. In October 2020, however, Samsung ended service for its XR applications.
(Yonhap)
