Korea Falling Behind
Global ICT giants are competing each other for new business areas like artificial intelligence (AI), self-driving vehicles and so on while the Korean ICT industry suffers a stagnation in its growth.
Apple is working on self-driving cars in order to deal with the slowdown of the global smartphone market. To this end, Apple invested US$5 billion for the past three years, which is more than 20 times the amount it spent to develop the iPhone. The company is said to be investing US$1 billion in Didi Chuxing for the same purpose, too.
In the meantime, Google is developing self-driving cars, space technology, healthcare technology and many more with its artificial intelligence technology in order to cope with the saturation of the global smartphone market. At its general meeting of shareholders that took place on June 8, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, mentioned as its future growth drivers healthcare, meat alternative, 3D printer for buildings, virtual reality, self-driving car, chatterbot and customized learning utilizing machine learning.
Amazon is also innovating itself in the distribution industry as well. One of the examples is Amazon Web Services, which is the global number one cloud service. In addition, its AI-based personal assistant service Alexa is distinguishing itself from similar ones of Google, IBM and the like as a service specialized in the field of shopping.
Microsoft is turning itself into a service company by shifting the focus of its business from software to cloud computing and SNS. In this regard, Microsoft recently acquired LinkedIn for US$26.2 billion. This acquisition is likely to result in Microsoft’s greater presence in those sectors, which are currently led by Amazon Web Services, Google and Facebook.