South Korea’s leading home appliance manufacturer Samsung Electronics Co. on Thursday unveiled a package of premium kitchen appliances supported with the Internet of Thing (IoT) solutions, targeting the burgeoning upmarket built-in home appliance market in North America amid intensifying competition from its Chinese rivals with budget electronics.

Samsung Electronics’ high-end kitchen electronics were revealed two weeks before their official showcase at the Consumer Electronics Show, the world’s largest tradeshow for consumer technology, to be held in Las Vegas, the United States from January 5 to 8.

At the upcoming CES, Samsung Electronics is expected to present a series of built-in kitchen electronics encompassing refrigerators, wall ovens, combination microwave ovens, cooktops, rangehoods and dishwashers. All appliances will come in two sets of colors - metal design and black stainless - to appeal to consumers with a luxury look and feel. They will be also equipped with wireless Internet connection that will allow each kitchen appliance to be monitored and controlled by smartphones.

Samsung Electronics has made luxury design and IoT technologies available in its latest built-in kitchen appliance models as part of its efforts to target the rapidly growing high-end built-in appliance market in North America. The overall North American home appliance market is estimated to reach $28 billion, of which $5 billion is dedicated to the built-in home appliance market.

Built-in kitchen appliances are considered premium electronics as their production costs are high due to more sophisticated technologies required to build them than general kitchen appliances, an unnamed official from Samsung Electronics said, adding the upscale built-in kitchen electronics market has been burgeoning as of late.

Samsung Electronics’ latest move to venture into the premium home appliance market also comes at a time when its rivals from China and developing countries have been making fast inroads into the world’s low-end and mid-range home appliance market.

By Song Sung-hoon

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