Fair Trade Commission, "Semiconductor and Automobile Monopoly Structure Becoming Entrenched"

Fair Trade Commission to Announce '2020 Market Structure Survey Results' on the 25th

The monopolistic and oligopolistic structures in the domestic manufacturing and mining sectors have become entrenched. According to an investigation by the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC), competition was relatively active in the service sector, but the financial sector showed an intensified concentration among a few top operators.

On the 25th, the KFTC announced the results of the "2020 Market Structure Survey." This survey analyzed market concentration across all industries based on the Economic Census by Statistics Korea, with research services conducted by the Korea Development Institute (KDI).

The KFTC explained, "The degree of monopoly and oligopoly in the mining and manufacturing sectors has slightly eased over the past decade but has recently remained largely unchanged. In 36 industries including semiconductors and automobiles, the composition and ranking of top companies have remained unchanged for over 10 years, indicating that the degree of monopoly and oligopoly has become entrenched."

The manufacturing and mining industries maintaining monopolistic and oligopolistic structures included 51 sectors such as semiconductor, automobile, and mobile phone manufacturing. Except for semiconductor and mobile phone manufacturing, these monopolistic industries generally showed high average shipment value and domestic market concentration, but low research and development (R&D) ratios.

The KFTC identified semiconductor, passenger car, OLED, and freight automobile manufacturing as key targets for monitoring potential abuse of monopolistic positions.

In the service sector, 37 industries exhibited monopolistic and oligopolistic structures, including wireless and satellite communications, wired telecommunications, development financial institutions, and sales of new automotive parts and interiors. The KFTC noted, "While the degree of monopoly and oligopoly in the service sector has eased over the past decade, leading to more active competition, the market concentration in the financial sector?such as banking and insurance (the combined market share of the top three operators)?has actually increased compared to five years ago."

The KFTC stated, "We plan to thoroughly conduct monitoring activities against unfair trade practices such as abuse of market dominance in industries where market concentration is intensifying and in industries maintaining long-term monopolistic and oligopolistic structures."

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