Samsung Forum 2016 What's next?

For Samsung, regardless of the situation in the global market, in South West Asia business is booming at an unprecedented pace. In this year's Samsung South West Forum 2014, the largest consumer electronics giant showed the stats and figures of how it's growing in countries like India, Bangladesh Nepal and Sri Lanka. In case you didn't already know, Samsung Forum is an annual meet of Samsung's regional top cats to interact with top regional media companies and showcase upcoming business strategies and innovation. This year's forum was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A couple other colleagues from local media and I went to this year's forum to have a preview of Samsung's latest devices. We got to see tons of consumer appliances from smart home solutions to IoT enabled devices. Here are the highlights from the event:

Make for Bangladesh: Going local

The 2016 Samsung Forum kicked off with the introductory presentation by HC Hong, President and CEO, Southwest Asia, Samsung Electronics. In his brief presentation, the jovial top manager from Samsung showed us the company's performance last year in term of sales figures, market share and competition. He also told us how Samsung is personalising products in specific countries and regions to cater to the needs of their current and future customers. We also got to know about a new initiative of Samsung's called Make for Bangladesh where a product will be developed only for Bangladeshi customers. This initiative has already kicked off in Dhaka with a Samsung Studio Competition where students will develop and design the packaging for local Samsung handsets.

It's all about smartphones!

Undoubtedly the stars of the event were the two Galaxy devices: the 2016 A5 and A7 editions. Bolstered by the success of the A series, this year Samsung will be focusing on these two top-of-the-class mid-rangers in the region. Both the phones are a marriage of style and performance. The metal exterior seemed durable and chunky. We only got to check out the phones for an hour or so. The first impression of the hardware was pleasing. The price for the Indian market was announced in the event, but sadly the Bangladeshi market retail price is yet to be announced. And like most of the journalists attending the event, I too was excited to have a sneak peek of Samsung's flagship S7. Unfortunately, there were none. We too have to wait till February 21st.

Time to go 4K

Another key unveiling of the event was Samsung's top-of-the line curved bezel-less Tizen-powered KS9000 SUHD TV. We honestly don't know what the S exactly stands for. Maybe Samsung's way of stylising it's curved 4K TV line-up.

This cadmium-free TV's OS is Tizen. The SUHD TV now sports HDR (High Dynamic Range of colours), a 10-bit quantum dot display panel and ultra-black technology to minimise glare.

Truth be told, we would have been much happier if it was an android-powered TV. But Samsung reassured us that these IoT-enabled TVs will be able to compatible with Android and iOS devices. Good enough for us!

Smart appliances for smart homes

In this event we also got access to many of Samsung's smart home appliances that are not available in the local market yet. We saw smart keyless locks for doors; robo-vaccum cleaners; an interactive fridge; another fridge that conserves electricity intelligently; and washing machines that save both water and detergent. All these things were mesmerising. Who would have thought life could be so much more efficient and simpler even a couple years back?

This year's event was a short escapade of what amusing new tech Samsung is going to introduce in this region. We were amazed to see what Samsung had stored for this year. Hopefully so will you!