Samsung Electronics said yesterday it would take counter-action against Apple after the US firm filed suit alleging that the South Korean giant copied its smartphones and tablet computers.
The company also announced yesterday it would sell its hard disk drive business to US firm Seagate Technology for US$1.375 billion in cash and stock.
Apple’s lawsuit claims Samsung’s mobile phones and Galaxy Tab imitated the iPhone and the iPad.
“Samsung will respond actively to this legal action taken against us through appropriate legal measures to protect our intellectual property,” the South Korean firm said in a statement.
Samsung has been successfully developing its own core technologies and building up its intellectual property portfolio, it said.
Yonhap news agency quoted Samsung officials as saying they suspect Apple had violated Samsung’s wireless technology patents.
“Apple is one of our key buyers of semiconductors and display panels. However, we have no choice but to respond strongly this time,” an unidentified official was quoted as saying.
Apple was Samsung’s second-largest client last year after Japan’s Sony Corp, accounting for 4 percent of the South Korean firm’s 155 trillion won (US$142 billion) in annual revenues. Apple accused Samsung of copying the look, product design, packaging and user interface of its products, in a lawsuit filed on Friday with a US District Court in San Francisco and quoted by the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, Samsung’s deal with Seagate would help the South Korean firm, which held about a 10.7 percent share of the global hard-disk-drive (HDD) market in the fourth quarter, unload a money-losing business and focus on more profitable areas.
Samsung, the world’s largest maker of memory chips and flat-screen TVs, achieved a record -second-quarter operating profit of 5.01 trillion won last year, but its earnings have been falling since then.
The company said it would receive a 9.6 percent stake in Seagate and US$687.5 million in cash in return for transferring its HDD unit.
The two companies also agreed on a set of strategic partnerships. Samsung will supply NAND flash memory chips to Seagate’s solid state drives and other businesses.
The US company will provide disk drives to the South Korean giant. A Samsung executive will join Seagate’s board.
The deal would help Seagate strengthen its competitiveness against US rival Western Digital.
In March, Western Digital agreed to buy Hitachi’s hard-disk-drive business for about US$4.3 billion in cash and stock, a deal that created a dominant player with a nearly 50 percent market share.
Seagate chairman Steve Luczo said in a joint statement the company was expected to deliver “a broader range of innovative storage products and solutions” to customers.
According to market research firm iSuppli, Seagate had roughly 32 percent of the HDD market in the first quarter of this year. With Samsung’s HDD business, its share would reach about 40 percent.
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