Korean firms lag far behind in innovation; Three Korean firms have been included in a list of the world’s 100 most innovative companies: Samsung, LG Electronics, LG Industrial Systems)
October 9, 2013 Leave a comment
2013-10-08 18:20
Korean firms lag far behind in innovation
By Kim Tae-jong
Three Korean firms have been included in a list of the world’s 100 most innovative companies. But Korea still lags far behind Japan in terms of patent-based metrics, as a total of 28 Japanese companies made the list. The three local firms appearing in Thomson Reuters’ Top 100 Global Innovators report were LG Electronics, LSIS and Samsung Electronics
This list shows patent activity as a proxy for innovation and honors the 100 corporations that are at the heart of pushing patents, and selects those that secure global patent protection for their intellectual property, continue to push the envelope with new technologies and invest more in R&D.Thomson Reuters said the semiconductors and electronic components sector prevailed in its presence on the list this year again.
“There are 23 such companies this year, up 28 percent over last year when there were 18 semiconductor organizations. Of the full group, Samsung Electronics takes the lead in overall patent volume,” it said.
It also said the intense competition in the smartphone space is on clear display in this year’s list, with the presence of major players in the smartphone patent wars such as Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Google and BlackBerry.
Overall, U.S. companies took the most spots with 45 companies on the list, including four of the top five. The top innovator was 3M. Japan is the next biggest innovator with 28 entries ㅡ more than Europe’s total of 22.
Thomson Reuters also said the 100 organizations in the 2013 study outperformed the S&P 500 for the third consecutive year by 4 percent in annual stock price growth and 2 percent in market cap weighted revenue growth.
Collectively, they generated $4.5 trillion in revenue, nearly twice the GDP of the United Kingdom. The Top Innovators also added 266,152 new jobs over the last year, a rate that was 0.81 percent higher than the new job creation rate among constituents of the S&P 500.
This year’s winners also outspent the S&P 500 by 8.8 percent on R&D; collectively they invested $223 billion in their research and development efforts.