Samsung appears to have its eyes on yet another segment of Apple revenue: iTunes. There is no ‘iTunes killer’ out, but the South Korean company today hired a new executive to create “a new presence in media.” Taking on iTunes has become a cottage industry that usually ends with disappointment — but will Samsung be different?
David Eun, the former President of AOL Media and Studio, as well as a former Google executive likely has some scars from previous run-ins with iTunes. Noting Samsung might be late to the party, Eun laid out his plans to go beyond delivering just music to “connect the entire home and lives of consumers.”
Samsung hired Eun as their new Executive Vice President to “lead a new push to create more media offerings,” according to a statement. As a hardware maker, Samsung would like nothing more than to emulate the stickiness of iTunes, which spawned its own ecosphere for Apple. The ability to offer an iTunes like experience for Samsung Galaxy owners could go a long way toward locking in smartphone users, as iTunes owners stay connected to Macs, iPhones and iPads.
Can Samsung grab a measurable amount of iTunes users? Not likely. However, delivering music and video is only a small part of why iTunes is so valuable and a rich target for emulation. For phone makers, such as Samsung and phone software promoters, such as Google, iTunes is the gold standard for ensuring a long line of hardware sales. If Samsung focuses on that goal, rather than the losing proposition of media sales, Eun could have a successful tenure. Unless Samsung dooms it all by using the phrase “iTunes killer.”
