Samsung merges smartphone and camera divisions

The move should ideally result in better pictures from your next Galaxy smartphone.

Nishtha Kanal|Dec 16, 2013, 10:56:56 IST

Samsung has reportedly merged its Digital Imaging Business Division with the Wireless Business Division. The merger between what is essentially the smartphone and camera business is said to be in order to re-energise both divisions and an attempt to bring another differentiation factor to Samsung's smartphone and tablet products, as well as a bigger push into the imaging category.

The report was first carried by ETNews and spotted by The Verge, and says Samsung is aiming to capture a huge chunk of the global mirrorless camera market in 2015. The merger reportedly took place on December 11 in a hush-hush move. On the left hand side you have a provision for mounting the S4 Zoom on a tripod

On the left hand side you have a provision for mounting the S4 Zoom on a tripod

Cameras and mobiles, Samsung merges its biggest stregnths

The integration essentially means that instead of operating as separate entities, Samsung’s camera and mobile division will now work in tandem with each other. Since they’ll be able to lend resources to each other, it is hoped that it will ensure the same kind of quality than one expects from Samsung in displays and processors.

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“We will transplant the brand, sales networks, software competency, and manufacturing competitiveness of the Wireless Business Division into the Camera Business Division and integrate the technical know-how of the two business divisions into competency for differentiating our smartphones,” an official from Samsung Electronics was quoted as saying.

With this merger, Samsung’s camera team will benefit from the knowledge of the mobile division in terms of connectivity and miniaturisation to some extent. On the other hand, the mobile division will obviously be influenced by the camera teams to make better smartphone cameras from. So don't be surprised if the UI on your future Samsung camera is some variation of TouchWiz. Samsung has not shied away from building smartphone camera hybrids in the past and their success was possibly one reason for this integration in the first place. There’s the Galaxy S4 Zoom, with optical zoom and the Galaxy NX camera that is powered by Android.

Let’s face it. Cameras are one of the most important feature as far as smartphones are concerned even today. Samsung has not been too shabby in that respect yet, but with its camera division jumping in, maybe Nokia should be a little worried about its position at the top.

By Nishtha Kanal

Intrigued by all things social, Nishtha will invariably tweet about you. When not tweeting or writing about the next viral video, you will hear her proclaiming her love to Metallica, James Hetfield, Opeth, Akerfeldt and all bands that go 'growl'. She also obsesses about ACP Pradyuman and South Park and you will always find her moving around with a book. Her focus is on all the happening stuff in the tech domain, and she won't hesitate to take a shot at some of the oddball devices that make their way to our labs.