Samsung to scrap its European PC business

The move, made because of market demand, "isn't necessarily reflective of conditions in other markets," Samsung said. The company's US presence is unaffected by the move.

Another laptop maker is throwing in the towel.

Samsung will no longer sell laptops, including its Ativ line pictured here, in Europe.
Samsung plans to exit the computer business in Europe but said that doesn't mean it's getting out of PCs in other regions. In Europe, it will stop selling its Chromebooks powered by Google's Chrome operating system and its PCs running Microsoft's Windows software.

"We quickly adapt to market needs and demands," Samsung said in a statement. "In Europe, we will be discontinuing sales of laptops including Chromebooks for now. This is specific to the region -- and is not necessarily reflective of conditions in other markets. We will continue to thoroughly evaluate market conditions and will make further adjustments to maintain our competitiveness in emerging PC categories."

Samsung is one of the world's top provider of smartphones and tablets, but it's relatively new to the PC market. It doesn't even crack the top 5 in terms of the world's biggest computer makers, and its devices tend to be focused on consumers, rather than business customers. It has been making a big move with Chromebooks, including pushing them in schools, but it's unclear how high uptake has been. In addition, Samsung recently lost Mike Abary, the head of its PC business in the US, to rival Lenovo.


It's a tough time for companies to be in the computer market. More than half of the world's computers are shipped by Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acer and Asus, and most of the demand is coming from business users, as PC chip giant Intel has noted. And at the same time, the overall size of the PC market has shrunk. Worldwide computer shipments will decline by 3.7 percent to 303 million units in 2014, market researcher IDC predicted last month.

Samsung's plans to exit its European business follow a similar -- though bigger -- move by Sony. The Japanese company in February said it had agreed to sell its entire Vaio PC business to an investment fund. Sony said "the drastic changes in the global PC industry, Sony's overall business portfolio and strategy, the need for continued support of Sony's valued VAIO customers, and future employment opportunities for personnel involved in the VAIO business," caused it to determine that focusing on mobile instead of PCs was the right path to take.

http://www.cnet.com/news/samsung-pla...n-pc-business/