Harman International Industries Inc., a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., acquired audio platform company Roon Labs LLC as it strengthens its presence in the global home audio market.

Harman International said on Tuesday that it took over the New York-based music management, search, and streaming platform.

Established in 2015, Roon boasts a rich interface, audio device compatibility, and an outstanding sound playback engine that are usable on all computer operating systems. Roon also manufactures Nucleus, its hardware server device line.

Although Roon will operate independently from Harman’s business units, service operations and Roon’s community service will continue. Harman also plans to support Roon’s open ecosystem, which includes more than 160 audio brands and over 1,000 devices.

Industry insiders say that Harman has gained competitiveness in the home audio market via the acquisition. While Harman has been a leader in areas such as automotive audio, Bluetooth speakers, party, and event speakers, it has been suggested that the company needs to further enhance its competitiveness in the home audio sector.

Although the market size of the Wi-Fi speaker market stood at $7.8 billion in 2022, it is expected to grow to $12.5 billion by 2027. “With the acquisition of Roon, Harman is expected to strengthen its global leadership in the consumer audio market,” an official from Samsung Electronics Co. said.

“We expect the acquisition to enhance Harman’s solid engineering capabilities,” Dave Rogers, president of the Lifestyle division at Harman International, said.

Harman continues to expand since becoming a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics and has acquired five companies since 2017, including automotive technology companies Savari Inc. in 2021 and Apostera the year after.

By Seong Seung-hoon and Chang Iou-chung

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