01.09.2015

Axel Springer and Samsung Electronics Announce New Strategic Partnership

Axel Springer SE, the leading digital publisher in Europe and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., today announced a new strategic partnership focused on the development of new digital media services for European consumers. An agreement was signed by JK Shin, CEO & Head of Samsung’s IT & Mobile Business and Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer SE.

Leveraging Axel Springer’s editorial expertise and Samsung’s mobile industry leadership and innovation, the two companies will collaborate to deliver digital media offerings exclusively for Samsung customers. The content will be designed to both meet and anticipate consumers’ rapidly-evolving needs in an increasingly ‘mobile-centric’ era.

Young Hoon Eom, President & CEO, Samsung Electronics Europe, comments: “Samsung strives to work with cutting-edge partners that can help us to continuously strengthen our already diverse mobile content and services offerings. With Axel Springer’s digital publishing heritage and our mobile expertise, we’re confident that together, we can deliver ground-breaking content and services that will excite and delight our respective customers.”

Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer SE: “Over the past few years, there have been many occasions in which Axel Springer and Samsung, one of the world’s most innovative consumer electronics companies, have exchanged views on the fantastic technological opportunities for journalism in the digital age. These discussions have now resulted in this exciting strategic partnership. It is a privilege to be collaborating with Samsung to bring creative new services to the market in 2016 and beyond.”

Axel Springer and Samsung also revealed an early beta version of UPDAY, an aggregated news content platform which, when fully launched next year, will be the first complete service to have been developed under the terms of the new partnership.

UPDAY will offer Samsung customers access to a range of news content that combines ‘Need to Know’ information selected by a local market editorial team and ‘Want to Know’ information, an algorithm-based service tailored to customers’ individual interests.

This early beta version of UPDAY will be initially available beginning on Thursday, September 3 2015, to select Samsung customers in Germany and Poland, with a full service launch expected to rollout in both countries, as well as other European markets, in early 2016.

Notes to Editors:

The early beta version of UPDAY is exclusively available to download through Samsung GALAXY Apps, Google Play (limited to Samsung devices) and Galaxy Gifts.

About Axel Springer

Axel Springer is the leading digital publisher in Europe and a pioneer in paid subscription offerings. With headquarters in Berlin, the company is active in more than 40 countries with subsidiaries, joint ventures and licenses. Axel Springer SE is divided into three operating segments: Paid Models, Marketing Models and Classified Ad Models. In 2014, it achieved an EBITDA of EUR 507.1 million. More than half of Group revenues were generated by digital activities, which amounted to more than 70 percent of Group EBITDA.

About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies, redefining the worlds of TVs, smartphones, wearable devices, tablets, cameras, digital appliances, printers, medical equipment, network systems, and semiconductor and LED solutions. We are also leading in the Internet of Things space through, among others, our Smart Home and Digital Health initiatives. We employ 319,000 people across 84 countries with annual sales of US $196 billion. To discover more, please visit our official website at www.samsung.com and our official blog at global.samsungtomorrow.com.

Press Contacts:

Axel Springer SE:
Sandra Petersen
Tel: + 49 30 2591-77613
sandra.petersen@axelspringer.de

 

Samsung:
Morgan Evans
Tel: +44 77 88338271
mg.evans@samsung.com