SEOUL, KOREA - The patent war between Samsung Electronics and Apple has been a hot button topic around the world. The fact that this news is so substantial underlies the proof that Samsung has grown into a leading global company.
Only ten years ago, Samsung Electronics could not hold a candle to Japanese companies such as Sony and Panasonic, as well as global industry giants Motorola and Nokia. The growth of Samsung in this time is unprecendented .
The Galaxy series of Samsung Electronics helped the Korean electronic giant rank first in the world smartphone market. This fact can be credited to the combination of Samsung Electronics’ various line-ups of 3G and 4G cell phones and an active global sales network.
Samsung Electronics concentrated on securing product leadership through ceaseless research and development in order to produce new products and a differentiation of design, products, and functionality, all of which has paid off handsomely. LG Electronics launched the world’s first VoLTE smartphone and proved its leadership in LTE patents by ranking first in an LTE standard patent evaluation.
Samsung Semiconductor is actively diversifying its product portfolio with high-performance high-value-added products that consume less power than the company’s nearest competition based around precise processes. The company has launched innovative products such as quad-core APs, high-speed LP DDR3 mobile D-RAMs, 20 nano-class nand flash-based memories. Samsung Display has held first place in global market share since they became the first global company to mass-produce AM OLEDs in 2007. The company enjoys a 97% share in the world AM OLED market. In particular, with the launches of smartphones featuring larger screens measuring four or more inches, demand for AM OLEDs has grown explosively. LG Display is also enjoying brisk business in the 3D TV market with FPR 3D panels. Like these, many of Korea’s key companies are leading the global market with the world’s best competitiveness.
According to research on the status of Korea’s leading industries by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Corporate Korea is dominating the shipbuilding, display, and cell phone markets throughout the world. Corporate Korea is currently renowned as a world leader in the semiconductor, petrochemical, and automobile industries.
Korea is also highly competitive in the steel, textile, and machinery sectors. The government actively implemented new growth engine polices to develop future growth engines. Such policies paid off to an enormous extent, as Korea now is first in the world in the lithium secondary cell market.
With an increase in demand for secondary cells thanks to the increasing market of advanced IT devices such as smartphones and smartpads, Korea’s share rose to 45% in the world market for special elecfoils for secondary cells. LED sales increased five-fold over the past four years, and as such Korea emerged as the second-ranked country in the world LED device market. Seoul Semiconductor, who is currently ranked sixth in the LED market, developed Enpolar based on its non-polar technology. Enpolar offers five times more brightness than conventional LEDs.
Korea is working diligently to compete with China, India, Brazil and Russia, all of which achieved more than US$1 trillion in international trade ahead of Korea. However, Korea’s shares in the world ICT product and parts markets held around 55% and 8% without recording increases. However, China’s shares have grown sharply since the start of the 2000s. China’s shares stood at 22.5% and 17.7%, respectively in 2011.
With the rapid expansion of Chinese companies in the global market, Korea is expected to face tough challenges from China in nearly all industrial markets throughout the world. In the ICT sector, Korea needs creative technologies in order to better compete in the world market ahead of developed countries.
Recently, an IT convergence industrial revolution is taking place in all industrial sectors including the manufacturing industry (shipbuilding, automobiles, steel, textile, aviation, construction and agriculture) and the service industrial sectors (education, finance and medical service). In addition, the revolution is creating new economic value while combining technology, culture, arts, and humanity beyond technological convergence.
The government has been implementing policies to prepare for a trend called “industrial convergence” and achieve an era of per-capita income of US$40,000 and US$2 trillion in trade. It is forecast that the government will create new industries, markets, and jobs by combining creative ideas with science and technology and ICT through the future creating economy. The government is planning to support the development of business related to the ten major new convergence industries including intelligent robots, bio new drugs, intelligent cars, and smart airplanes. The government will support core software convergence technology that follows new trends such as big data and cloud and technology-oriented 3G R&D to humanity-oriented 4G R&D.
With an aim to expand infrastructure in order to spearhead the convergence industry, the government will also improve next-generation smart networks such as 4G mobile telecommunication, M2M and RFID/USN, and develop educational service platforms based on cloud computing. Moreover, the government will build a cloud health information system based on an individual health information data base for the promotion of the u-health care service industry. In order to achieve this, the government will develop a u-wellness service model that offers remote medical services to individuals.
To this end, the government has decided to build a large genetic information analysis system based on bio convergence technology. In addition, the government will construct a disaster and safety big data system and a crime prevention system based on security networks such as CCTV networks. This will be accomplished by applying various new convergence technologies towards assisting with crime prevention. The government is planning to build an industrial complex that focuses on solar and wind power and fuel cells.
The government is also planning to automate farming and livestock production facilities by applying LED convergence technology and create a local community-friendly convergence cluster in connection with medical, cultural and tourism products.
SNS, smart security and smart wearable devices are ICT industrial items that befit the future creating economy by actively seeking new growth engines through convergence within existing areas. The cause for SNS’s recent move into the limelight as a new growth engine is that SNS creates new business by combining itself with various industries. In particular, SNS has vast potential as it can build a network by combining with smartphones regardless of available time and space.
In addition, the smart security industry is believed to be a potential golden egg of the next ICT industry. The domestic security market is estimated to be worth approximately 4.6 trillion won, only 2.4% of the world smart security market. However, the smart security industry is eying the MDM solution market and overseas markets in order to grow this figure. With the expansion of the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend, mobile security is expected to steadily grow. The Korean mobile office market is expected to grow to 5.9 trillion won next year. Wearable devices are beginning to be thought of as wearable computers, and this will help market shares grow.
Recently, the Samsung Economic Research Institute picked wearable devices as one of the seven key technologies that can change future industries. Google Glass from Google and iWatch from Apple are current wearable devices. Industry experts believe that smartphones and applications will be keys to the growth of wearable devices. The ultimate goal of wearable devices is to develop more convenient and creative services in connection with smartphones. The world economy is rapidly moving towards an era of great convergence with the combination of technology and humanity. IT convergence already entered its expansion period in 2010. The world IT convergence market is expected to more than double in growth by 2020.
