Samsung Drops from 1st to 2nd in Global R&D Investment... Yields Spot to Google's Parent Company 'Alphabet'

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bo-kyung] Samsung Electronics has lost its position as the world's top R&D investor to Alphabet, the parent company of Google.

The Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT) announced on the 5th the results of an in-depth analysis of the top 1,000 domestic and international R&D investing companies as of 2018. The global top 1,000 company data was sourced from the European Union (EU)'s "EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard Report."

The top R&D investor was Alphabet, the parent company of the U.S. search engine Google. Alphabet invested 18.3 billion euros in R&D, which is 15.3% of its net sales. This represents a 30.3% increase in investment compared to the previous year.

Samsung Electronics, which was ranked first the previous year, dropped to second place. Samsung Electronics' R&D investment amounted to 14.8 billion euros, accounting for 7.8% of its net sales.

Among the global top 1,000 R&D investing companies, 24 were Korean companies. The total R&D investment by domestic companies was recorded at 28.7 billion euros. The scale of R&D investment by Korean companies has grown at an average annual rate of 12.2% over the past decade. Korea ranks 8th in the world in terms of the number of R&D investing companies and 6th in terms of investment amount.

Looking at the ranking changes of major domestic companies, LG Electronics fell 4 places from 53rd to 57th, and Kia Motors dropped from 118th to 132nd. SK Hynix rose from 67th to 63rd, Hyundai Motor from 73rd to 69th, and LG Chem from 198th to 191st.

The United States ranked first with 318 companies among the top 1,000 R&D investing companies. China, which has continuously expanded its R&D investment, ranked second with 147 companies, surpassing Japan. This is an increase of 25 companies compared to the previous year and about 1.8 times more than five years ago.

Examining the industrial distribution of global R&D investing companies, the strength of the ICT industry driven by the Fourth Industrial Revolution was prominent. By industry, the number of companies in the "Software and Computer Services" sector increased 1.7 times compared to 10 years ago, reaching 126 companies, showing a strong growth trend.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.