Fortune Global 500, Korea's Disappointing Performance (Comprehensive)

Only 16 Make the List... Just Entry into 8 Sectors Excluding New Industries

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Sun-mi] Although 16 Korean companies, including Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK, and LG Electronics, made it to the list of the global top 500 companies, they showed the limitation of entering only 8 out of 21 industries excluding new industries. This highlights the urgent need for nurturing ‘representative companies’ at the national level.

On the 22nd, the Federation of Korean Industries analyzed the country-wise status of the ‘2022 Fortune Global 500’ and found that Korean companies accounted for only 16 (3.2%). This is a slight improvement compared to last year’s 15 companies on the list. However, Samsung Electronics, Korea’s top company, dropped 3 places from last year to 18th, and Hyundai Motor, the second, fell 9 places from 83rd to 92nd, showing weakened competitiveness of Korea’s representative companies. The number of companies on the list is also far behind not only the G2 countries such as China with 136 (27.2%) and the United States with 124 (24.8%), but also major advanced countries like Japan (47), Germany (28), France (25), and the United Kingdom (18).

There is more than a tenfold difference in sales compared to the United States and China. The total sales of U.S. companies in the ranking amount to $11.2 trillion, averaging $90.46 billion per company. China’s total is also $11 trillion, averaging $80.98 billion per company. In contrast, the total sales of Korean companies selected for the Global 500 is $996.2 billion, with an average of $62.39 billion per company, the lowest among major countries.

The diversity of industries entered is also significantly lacking. Among the 21 industries classified by the Global 500, the United States has representative companies in 19, China in 15, Japan and France each in 13, Germany in 11, and the United Kingdom in 8. Korean companies have representative companies in only 8 industries, and there is a strong concentration of 12 companies (75.0%) in the four major industries of electronics & semiconductors, finance, automobiles, and energy. There is not a single Korean company in the Fortune Global 500 that has entered new industries such as aerospace and healthcare. Since Korea started classifying industries in the Global 500 in 2015, representative companies have appeared in only 6 to 8 industries annually. In the four major export industries?electronics & semiconductors, automobiles, materials & metals, and chemicals?the annual sales of the global number one companies are 1.5 to 4.6 times higher than those of the top domestic companies, indicating a significant size gap within the same industry.

Yoo Hwan-ik, head of the industrial division at the Federation of Korean Industries, said, "It is very regrettable that high-level regulations on Korean companies weaken competitiveness in existing industries and that it is difficult to find companies succeeding in new industries." He argued, "It is necessary to ease discriminatory regulations on large companies to nurture companies that can represent Korea in the global market."

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