In early March 2017, Samsung Electronics officially made the largest acquisition in its history, closing the deal to buy the US audio equipment manufacturer Harman International Industries. According to industry sources, which leads Business Korea, Samsung's new asset has already managed to make its contribution to the financial performance of the South Korean vendor.

Thus, in the first quarter of 2017, the Harman business brought the new owner about 538 billion won (about 479 million US dollars) in revenue and almost 24.5 billion won (21.8 million dollars) in net profit. Given this, it is expected that the new division, formed on the basis of Harman, will add to the annual financial results of Samsung a significant amount in 2017.

At present, Harman International Industries shares are not listed on the stock exchange, and there is no data on the company's financial results in public access. However, insiders believe that in January-March 2017, Harman's sales volume exceeded 2 trillion won (1.8 billion dollars), while operating profit was at 200 billion won (178 million dollars).

It is expected that this year the Harman business will bring Samsung additional revenue of at least 8 trillion won (7.1 billion dollars), as well as operating profit of 800 billion won (711 million dollars).

Earlier, Bloomberg reported that according to analysts' forecast, Harman's revenue and operating profit in 2017 should reach 7.5 billion and 750 million dollars respectively.

Meanwhile, research firm WiseFN predicts that this year Samsung Electronics will beat the record for revenue and operating profit. It is expected that the indicators will reach 232 and 50 trillion won respectively (206.3 and 44.5 billion dollars). This is a significant improvement over the previous record registered by the company in 2013. Then, the annual revenue and operating profit of the South Korean giant amounted to 228.69 and 36.79 billion won.