Hanhwa Techwin maintains that everything will be the same after the name change, but the remark did little to dampen skepticism voiced by industry experts, some of whom took issue with what they said were the company's false assurances over the months.
A little over a year after Samsung sold its stake in Samsung Techwin to Hanwha Holdings, it looks like the Samsung Techwin name will soon be a thing of the past. On Friday, March 4, Samsung Techwin America announced that starting April 1, its name will officially be changed to Hanwha Techwin America.
Similarly, Samsung Techwin Europe also announced that its name will be changed to Hanwha Techwin Europe, effective on the same day.
Tom Cook, vice president of sales for North America at Hanwha Techwin, however did try to reassure that the “Samsung” brand, which customers have grown familiar with, will stay at least for now. At a recent news conference, he asserted that as a co-owner of the Samsung brand, the company will sell all products under Samsung, and that will continue.
However, Cook admitted that the branding issue has been a negotiation point throughout the process and eventually, the company may drop the brand altogether and switch to its own brand, adding it will be up to the company to decide when that will happen.
But for now, he said, from an organizational standpoint, everything will be business as usual, saying the innovation, quality, and reliability of products will remain the same, and so will be the company’s factories, sales companies, and channel partners.
His remarks, however, did little to dampen skepticism voiced by industry experts, some of whom took issue with what they said were Samsung Techwin’s false assurances over the months.
According to a recent post on IPVM, when the deal was first announced, Hanwha Techwin had maintained that this was just a stock transaction, and when it was realized it was more than that, the company maintained that Samsung Techwin America and Samsung Techwin Europe will keep their current corporate identities, including company name and brand. There was even word that Hanwha Techwin had unrestricted use of the Samsung brand beyond 2017, according to the post.
Also, the Samsung brand name does carry a weight in the consumer mentality, especially in the West. Losing that would be losing a big part of the company’s identity. In the same IPVM post, descriptions of how bosses took issue with "Hanwha Techwin" but not "Samsung" or how "Hanwha" and "Techwin" both appear wrong on spell checks are indicative of this rationale.