Research and development (R&D) investments by major corporations in Korea exceeded 60 trillion won during the year 2023. This is the total investment amount of 40 domestic corporations listed among the top 2,000 global corporate R&D investors, ranking fifth in the world.
The Korea Institute of Science and Technology Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP) recently released a brief titled "Status of the world's top 2,000 corporations in R&D investment," analyzing the European Union (EU) Commission's "EU industrial R&D investment scoreboard."
According to the report, the total investment amount of the world's top 2,000 corporations reached about €1.2574 trillion (approximately 1,900 trillion won), marking a record high, which is a 7.7% increase from the previous year. Domestic corporations accounted for 3.4% of this total with investments of €42.55 billion (66 trillion won). In terms of market share, they ranked fifth after the United States (42.3%), China (17.2%), Germany (8.9%), and Japan (8.3%).
In terms of individual corporations, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, Meta, Apple, and Microsoft (MS) took the top four spots. Among domestic corporations, Samsung Electronics invested €19.89 billion (approximately 30 trillion won), a 14.4% increase from the previous year, maintaining its position at seventh in the world and accounting for about 47% of the total investment amount of domestic corporations ranked in the top 2,000. SK hynix rose to 42nd place with an investment of €5.31 billion (approximately 8 trillion won), a staggering increase of 69.3%, entering the top 50 worldwide for the first time.
Additionally, LG Electronics (80th), Hyundai Motor (81st), LG CHEM (166th), and LG Display (180th) made it onto the ranking, while SK Innovation, Doosan Enerbility, Hanwha Aerospace, SK Telecom, and others were newly listed.
Notably, the growth rate of investments by domestic corporations was approximately 23.7% compared to the previous year, which was higher than that of the G7 countries including the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, as well as Taiwan and China.
However, while ICT hardware accounted for 62.7% of total domestic R&D investments, the shares of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology (2.1%) and ICT software (1%) were notably lower compared to major advanced countries. In the United States, those figures reached 25.4% and 34.2%, respectively, and Japan, China, and the United Kingdom also demonstrated higher ratios than Korea.