What to do when you’ve got a huge pile of cash lying around with nothing to spend it on? Me?  I’d never want to wake up because I know it’s only something I can only ever dream about. But that isn’t the case for everyone – especially not if you happen to be one of the world’s largest electronics giants. Instead of sleeping, you’ll be up all hours of the night thinking of ways to invest that cash so as to grow your pile even bigger. After all, you can never have too much money!

And that’s most likely what Samsung plans to do with its reported $28.5 billion stockpile.  In its first quarter, Samsung experienced a 42 percent rise in net profits, raking in almost $40 billion at the end of March.  Even after stripping out Samsung’s debt, it is still left with almost $29 billion in clean profit, and some experts predict that by 2015, the South Korean giant’s net profit would grow as high as an astonishing $92 billion a year.

That sure is a nice amount of money to be burning a hole in your pocket, but such a figure is sure to attract attention, with the Wall Street Journal now asking exactly what Samsung intends to do with all of its wedge. Most analysts are expecting Samsung to make acquisitions, while some shareholders will be holding out hopes that the company will boost its dividend, but here at SiliconANGLE we prefer to dream, and we think there’s a very good chance that Samsung will want to splurge some of its fortune on something a little more exciting than that.

Here’s three ways we’d like to see Samsung throw its money around:

Hugely invest in R&D

Samsung has so much money it could easily beat out the competition if pours its billions into a little R&D. They develop a roll-up, flexible tablet/smartphone that people can stuff away in their pockets, or even better, a smart pen that can project images onto any surface, in any lighting condition. The image produced could even be touch-sensitive, giving the pen all the functionality of a smartphone, allowing users to make or receive voice and video calls, send text messages, download and run apps, and other functionalities.

If anyone can afford to make it happen, Samsung can.

Buy! Buy! Buy!

Samsung could also use the money to acquire a few startups that could boost its R&D. Alternatively it might want to consider buying up a few patent portfolios so it can finally have its day against Apple in court.  Or Samsung could have the best of both worlds and acquire ailing companies. That way, the company gains people and technology as well as their patent portfolios.

Go to Mars!

Why not?  If I had a huge amount of money in excess, I’d probably got to Mars just because I can.  According to Mars One, an initiative aimed at creating a permanent human settlement on the fourth planet, sending the first four people to Mars can be done for the comparatively small cost of just $6 billion – which is just be a fraction of Samsung’s excess cash.

So what would Samsung do when they get to Mars? Aside from hanging out with Curiosity and taking a tour of the Red Planet in the hope that they’d find some intelligent life out there, they would almost certainly be able to get exclusive rights to the live reality TV show starring the lucky colonists that Mars One wants to beam back to earth. What with all the money they’d make from that, plus the advancements in technology that a trip to Mars would necessitate, Samsung would be able to come up with an incredible range of new products that would boost sales even further. The possibilities are endless! ;)