Samsonite International S.A. announced on Thursday that it has bought Speck Products, a company that makes cases for mobile devices, for $85 million.
Speck was founded in 2001 and is based in Mountain View, Calif., according to PC Magazine.
The company's protective cases are made for the MacBook, iPad, iPhone, Android, and devices for Windows Phone, along with other eReaders and tablets.
"Speck is the second strategic addition we have made to our growing portfolio of brands this year," said Tim Parker, Chairman and CEO of Samsonite. "It is an exciting acquisition for us, as it marks our first foray outside of what is considered the 'traditional' luggage space, into a different, yet complementary, product segment."
Speck recently started to make cases for Apple laptops, TechCrunch reported.
The company has spent the past few years building broad consumer brand awareness, along with a strong distribution network in the U.S. The acquisition could help Speck expand its products in other countries.
Tom Korbas, U.S. president for Samsonite, said its deal with Speck "offers Samsonite the opportunity to participate in the large and growing smartphone-case market, which in the U.S. alone is estimated to be worth $2.3 billion, as well as in the tablet-case market, where Speck is also a leader," Re/code reported.
"Although Speck experienced a temporary setback in 2013 from its historically strong results when the business was impacted by an industry-wide overhang in inventory from 2012, efforts to restructure the business are already well underway," said Irene Baran, CEO of Speck Products.
Samsung's purchase of Speck comes a month after the company's acquisition of Lipault, a luggage brand from France, PC Magazine reported.
Speck is possibly known best for its CandyShell "hard-soft" cases, which come in a variety of designs and colors.
"We see many possibilities for extending the brand into adjacent categories, leveraging the appeal that Speck's creative designs have with younger consumers and our own enterprise in bags," Korbas said.
