HARMAN Purchase of B&W Et Al Impacts Car as Well as Home Audio

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By James Chevrette

Samsung subsidiary HARMAN announced Wednesday it will buy Masimo’s audio business for $350 million. While the aim is to strengthen HARMAN’s audio business, it also impacts its car audio business, said Samsung.

The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. It includes HARMAN’s purchase of brands B&W [Bowers & Wilkins], Denon and Marantz.  These will join HARMAN brands JBL, Harman Kardon, AKG, Mark Levinson, Arcam, and Revel.

“In the car audio business, in addition to the existing Harman Kardon, JBL, Mark Levinson, AKG, and Bang & Olufsen, we plan to expand our portfolio to include brands such as B&W, and solidify our business position by providing differentiated audio experiences and sound services by brand to automakers and customers,” announced Samsung.

Bowers & Wilkins is already offered in certain BMW, Volvo, Maserati, McLaren, and Polestar vehicles.

The deal is also expected to “solidify” HARMAN’s “global No. 1 position in the consumer audio market, which is expected to grow from $60.8 billion in 2025 to $70 billion in 2029.”

Dave Rogers, President of HARMAN’s Lifestyle division, said, “This acquisition represents a strategic step forward in the expansion of HARMAN’s core audio business and footprint across key product categories such as Home Audio, Headphones, Hi-fi components, and Car Audio. It complements our existing strengths and opens new avenues for growth.”

For the full press releases here and here

 

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5 Comments

  1. The B&O and B&W stuff for OEM was already being made by Harman. They were just licensing the name because they ran out of the brands they already owned.

  2. Will not be surprised if some of the smaller companies quietly go away. There is a reason they are struggling in the marketplace

  3. Confident that Samsung will continue to follow that strategy, to not actively disrupt the Status Quo of their new brands, But it’s sad day when venerable US brands like Boston and Polk have declined such, to effectively be ‘thrown-in’ to this modest ‘fire sale’ — given the fact the Sound United portfolio of 6+ brands previously sold for $1B. 😳

  4. One positive that may be taken from this, is that Samsung has historically done a good job at keeping their subsidiaries separate from one another.

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