Samsung Takes Google Software Challenge to Televisions

Samsung Electronics Co. (005930)’s challenger to Google Inc. (GOOGL) software is moving from phones to big-screen TVs as the South Korean company tries to capitalize on the burgeoning interest in smart homes. The world’s biggest maker of TVs will unveil the first sets powered by Tizen software at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, and all the Web-connected models it sells this year will run the operating system. The company also may demonstrate at CES how the TVs communicate with its washing machines, refrigerators and vacuum cleaners. The controlling Lee family is trying to reinvent Samsung as a purveyor of Internet-connected appliances to grab share of a market that may be worth $7.1 trillion by 2020. Samsung wants to generate revenue from Tizen applications and services just as Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google do from their operating systems, and the Suwon-based company is emphasizing TVs and consumer electronics after falling a year behind schedule on a Tizen-based phone. “In smartphones, there’s no chance that Samsung’s Tizen can edge out the two dominant operating systems,” said Claire Kim, a Seoul-based analyst at Daishin Securities Co. (003540) “But in TVs, Samsung may have a chance.” To contact the reporter on this story: Jungah Lee in Seoul at jlee1361@bloomberg.net