Samsung Won’t Enter U.S. Market . . . Yet

Korea’s newest car maker, Samsung Motors Inc., has scrapped plans to enter the U.S. market at the turn of the century, but says it won’t abandon its U.S. design center in Huntington Beach.

Samsung bought the center last year from independent British design firm International Automotive Design. The company says it will continue to use the Orange County center to generate ideas for its operations around the globe. And, of course, to help design cars for the U.S. market whenever Samsung does decide to join fellow South Korean car makers Hyundai Motor Corp. and Kia Motors Inc. in the North American market.

Both of those companies’ U.S. headquarters are in Orange County. With its design center already here, Samsung is a likely candidate to boost the number of Asian car importers located here when it does decide to cross the Pacific.

*

John O’Dell covers major Orange County corporations and manufacturing for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-5831 and at john.odell@latimes.com