South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. is rapidly expanding presence in the automotive chip market after adding another major global finished car brand Volkswagen to the list of its automotive chip customers on top of Audi cars.

According to multiple sources from the manufacturing industry on Wednesday, Samsung Electronics’ Samsung System LSI business has been supplying its latest system chip Exynos Auto for Volkswagen models for in-vehicle information and entertainment systems since early this year. Exynos Auto is Samsung Electronics’ standalone System-on-Chip component and automotive infotainment application.

The supply comes as Samsung Electronics is putting out efforts to nurture vehicle-use chips as one of its future growth engines.

Exynos Auto is the first automotive infotainment application released by Samsung Electronics. The series it supplied to Germany’s Audi helps a car control vehicle status, navigation, and multimedia. All of Audi’s latest car models apply Exynos Auto chips.

There have been rumors that Samsung Electronics would highly likely supply vehicle-use chips to Volkswagen, Audi’s parent and world’s biggest automaker, but it is the first time that sources have confirmed the move.

Samsung Electronics plans to add more automotive chips to its non-memory portfolio based on Exynos Auto. It has expanded its product range to image sensors, infotainment-use SoC, and LED chips.

Automotive chips bring relatively low profitability as an individual product but they are emerging as a next-generation component with more supply of electric vehicles and self-driving cars.

Shares of Samsung Electronics opened 0.25 percent higher at 79,700 won ($69.6) on Thursday morning.

By: DocMemory
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