Lee Jae-yong's Chosen 'Robot Business' Expands... Samsung, LG, Hyundai Motor Declare Entry (Comprehensive)

Samsung Electronics Aggressively Recruits Talent Ahead of 'GEMS' Launch
Robot Market Growing at Double-Digit Annual Rate

Samsung Electronics is significantly increasing its workforce in the robotics business division. This move is seen as an aggressive talent acquisition effort ahead of the launch of its first commercial product, ‘GEMS.’ It also reflects the intention to actively pursue robotics as a core future business, a key area personally selected by Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, as a new growth engine.

◆ Samsung Electronics Launches Aggressive Talent Acquisition = According to Asia Economy’s report on the 18th, Samsung Electronics’ robotics business team is planning to more than double its current workforce of around 130 employees by the end of the year. An insider familiar with internal affairs said, “Since it is a newly established organization, the reality is that there is a shortage of personnel,” adding, “We plan to significantly increase the workforce to twice the current size by the end of the year.”

Samsung Electronics’ robotics business team has stepped up aggressive talent acquisition because, although it was elevated from a robotics commercialization task force (TF) to an official department through an organizational restructuring at the end of last year, the workforce size still remains at the TF level. It is also reported that they have yet to form a proper new business and development planning team due to manpower shortages.

Especially due to the nature of a newly formed organization, it is known to be quite challenging to secure excellent talent internally. Another insider hinted, “Since it is a newly created department, employees are naturally most concerned about performance and evaluations,” adding, “Internal job postings for necessary personnel recruitment are not proceeding smoothly.”

In fact, Samsung Electronics has recently been actively pursuing external experienced hires. This is interpreted as a move to accelerate business commercialization by actively recruiting outstanding external talent. The robotics business team recently conducted large-scale recruitment for 19 job categories, including ▲mechanical and hardware development ▲overseas sales ▲product planning ▲robot standards ▲business strategy. Last month, they also posted job openings related to clinical marketing and clinical research closely linked to medical robot development.

Samsung Electronics is currently preparing to launch its first medical robot product, ‘GEMS.’ As the commercialization of robots approaches, the aggressive talent acquisition trend is expected to continue for the time being. If the plan to double the workforce is realized, the team is estimated to reach around 260 employees by the end of the year. Compared to the 12 members when the team was newly established early last year, this represents an increase of more than 20 times in size.

Other major domestic companies such as LG and Hyundai Motor Group are also aggressively investing and advancing commercialization stages, viewing robotics as one of their future growth engines. In the hyper-connected era, integrating robots and artificial intelligence (AI) has become essential to expand customer touchpoints in the home appliance and automotive sectors, which have led the market so far.

◆ Double-Digit Annual Growth in the Robotics Market... Samsung Takes on Challenge with First Commercial Product = According to global market research firm Strategy Analytics (SA), the global service robot market has grown at an average annual rate of 13% since 2020 and is expected to surpass the industrial robot market size after 2025. Latest statistics released by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement, and Korea Robot Industry Association show that the domestic service robot market size was about 857.7 billion KRW in 2020, a 34.9% increase from 2019.

Robotics is one of the future growth areas personally identified by Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong. In August last year, Lee announced plans to invest 240 trillion KRW over the next three years in future new business areas such as robotics and AI. Since Lee expressed his strong commitment to actively invest in new business sectors, Samsung’s robotics business has accelerated. The organizational restructuring that elevated the robotics task force (TF) to an official business team and announced full-scale market entry also took place at the end of last year.

Samsung’s robotics business currently focuses on health and daily life. This year, the goal is to commercialize GEMS, a wearable walking-assist robot for the hip joint. After GEMS commercialization, Samsung plans to mass-produce ▲‘Samsung Bot Serving’ to assist with ordering and food serving in stores ▲‘Samsung Bot Guide’ for customer service ▲‘Samsung Bot Care’ for caregiving ▲‘Samsung Bot Handy,’ a household robot to help with dishwashing and other tasks.

Samsung Electronics is also open to the possibility of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to expand its robotics business.

◆ LG and Hyundai Motor Early Adopters of Robotics... Expanding Distribution Stage = LG, which was the first domestic company to launch a robotic vacuum cleaner in 2003 and early on positioned robotics as a core future business, already has seven robot lineups.

Starting with the pilot operation of LG CLOi guide robots at Incheon International Airport in 2017, LG has expanded its ‘CLOi Robot’ lineup to six types, including LG CLOi sub-bots (drawer-type and shelf-type), LG CLOi Barista Bot, LG CLOi Chef Bot, and LG CLOi UV-C Bot. Last month, LG released a Korean-style lawn mowing robot optimized for domestic lawns and garden environments. They also plan to introduce additional commercial robotic vacuum cleaners for use in offices and hotel lobbies this month and are preparing for commercialization of integrated indoor-outdoor delivery robots.

LG Electronics’ robotics investments have also reached the performance stage. Starting with the wearable robot startup SG Robotics in 2017, LG invested in AI startup ‘Acryl,’ domestic industrial robot manufacturer ‘Robotis,’ and U.S. robot developer ‘Boston Dynamics.’ In 2018, LG acquired domestic industrial robot manufacturer ‘Robostar,’ which has since turned profitable.

Hyundai Motor Group also identifies robotics as one of its five new businesses and has been conducting research and development, producing tangible results. Wearable robots have been developed since 2014 to assist those with walking difficulties. Independently developed chair-type wearable robot CEX and vest-type wearable robot VEX have undergone verification through pilot applications at production lines in the U.S. factory since October 2020. Hyundai is now considering expanding these for medical use, such as assisting walking for patients with lower body paralysis or use in rehabilitation processes.

AI-based service robots include ‘Dali,’ which provides customer service, and ‘H2D2,’ which handles delivery services within hotels. Dali incorporates facial recognition, natural language conversation, and autonomous navigation technologies. Since its debut early last year, it has been providing customer service at some locations. A Hyundai Motor official said, “Robotics technologies such as environmental recognition, situational judgment, and mechanisms are core technologies that can be applied to future mobility sectors like autonomous vehicles, urban air mobility (UAM), and smart factories,” adding, “Global automakers are also striving to take the lead in the rapidly growing robotics market.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.