South Korean media: In the global R&D investment ranking of 2000 companies, there are 681 from the United States and 40 from South Korea. What about China?

On June 3, South Korean media "The Korea Economic Daily" published an article stating that EU investigations confirmed that Chinese enterprises have invested a lot in technological R&D, second only to American enterprises.

According to the "2024 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard," the total expenditure of the top 2000 R&D investing companies in the world reached 1257.4 billion euros in 2023, setting a historical record. The European Commission releases this data annually to enhance the competitiveness of its member states.

In the investment amount of the top 2000 companies, the U.S. accounted for the largest share (42.3%), with 531.8 billion euros. Alphabet, Google's parent company, ranked first, followed by Meta, Apple, and Microsoft. The number of U.S. enterprises was 681, leading the world.

The R&D investment amount of Chinese enterprises was 215.8 billion euros, second only to the U.S., ranking second. The number of enterprises was 524, close to that of the U.S. Next were Germany (111.9 billion euros) and Japan (104.8 billion euros). The Korea Institute of Science and Technology Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP) explained that the proportion of Chinese enterprises' investment among the top 2000 enterprises has sharply increased over the past 10 years. Huawei (6th place) and Tencent (19th place) were included in the top 20 R&D investment enterprises.

The R&D investment amount of South Korean enterprises was 42.5 billion euros, ranking fifth. This is the total investment of 40 South Korean enterprises including Samsung Electronics. Samsung Electronics is the only South Korean enterprise to enter the top 10, ranking seventh after Huawei. According to the survey, Samsung Electronics invested 19.9 billion euros. SK Hynix ranked 42nd with 5.3 billion euros.

Looking at the investment distribution of South Korean enterprises across various industries, the proportion of R&D investment in information communication technology (ICT) hardware was the highest, at 62.7%. Next came automotive and components (11.8%), others (10.3%), and industrial products (7.9%). It was also confirmed that South Korea is a "software desert." The investment in ICT software accounted for only 1%, far below that of the U.S. (34.2%), China (17.4%), Japan (9.8%), and Germany (7%).

Source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1833874021310475/

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