Global Innovator
Samsung Electronics ranked fourth among listed companies in the world in terms of research and development (R&D) investments.
It is said that Samsung Electronics confirmed its global status by making the top as the only Asian company with US companies such as Amazon, Alphabet (the parent company of Google) and Intel ranking as the top three companies in the world.
According to the “2017 Global Innovation 1000” Report by Strategy &, a subsidiary of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a global accounting consulting firm, Samsung Electronics ranked fourth among 1,000 companies surveyed as the Korean IT giant invested US$12.72 billion in research and development.
Amazon came in first with US$16.09 billion, followed by Alphabet with US$13.95 billion and Intel with US$12.74 billion, respectively. The top three jumped by two notches from last year.
Samsung Electronics, which had been at second place for four consecutive years since 2013, fell by two notches last year. But this year, Samsung Electronics ranked as one of nine companies that had not been pushed out of 20th place since 2005,
Germany's Volkswagen which topped the list last year slid to fifth place (US$12.15 billion) and Microsoft (MS), Roche (Germany), Merck, Apple and Novartis (Switzerland) made the top ten.
The top 100 included four Korean companies -- Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics (48th), Hyundai Motor (79th) and SK Hynix (84th).
The number of US companies in the top 20 is 13, including a total of 40. 13 American companies made the top 20 and 40 American companies the top 100. 16 Japanese companies made the top 100 including 11th-ranked Toyota. Six Chinese companies joined the top 100 club including the Alibaba Group (59th) that stood 59th.
In the list of "the 10 Most Innovative Companies," to which other factors such as the results of the survey were applied in addition to R&D investment, Alphabet outclassed Apple (2nd) for the first time. Samsung sat sixth, following Amazon, Tesla and Microsoft as it did last year.
The survey found that R&D investments of the 1,000 groups totaled US$701.6 billion, up 3.2 percent from the previous year, exceeding US$700 billion for the first time.
Japanese companies’ investment recorded growth for the first time in five years, showing a recent economic recovery while China which recorded double-digit growth in recent years, dropped 3.3 percent for the first time.