EU Industrial R&D Scoreboard Shows

Samsung R&D Campus located in Woomyeon-dong, Seoul

Samsung Electronics recorded the highest R&D investment in the world in the fiscal year of 2017 with 13.4367 billion euros and a year-on-year growth of 11.5%, according to this year’s EU Industrial R&D Scoreboard released recently by the European Commission.

Samsung Electronics was followed by Alphabet (13.3878 billion euros), Volkswagen (13.135 billion euros), Microsoft (12.2788 billion euros), Huawei (11.3341 billion euros), Intel, Apple, Roche, Johnson & Johnson and Daimler.

This is the first time that Samsung Electronics topped the list since the first EU Industrial R&D Scoreboard was published in 2004. Last year, the company came in fourth behind Volkswagen, Alphabet and Microsoft.

Samsung Electronics joined the leading group in sales growth (18.7%), capital expenditure growth (73.8%) and operating profit growth (83.5%), too. Meanwhile, it came in seventh with 7.2% in R&D concentration defined as the ratio of R&D investment to sales.

This year, LG Electronics (2.6369 billion euros) fell three notches to 53rd, SK Hynix (1.9372 billion euros) rose 16 notches to 67th, and Hyundai Motor Company (1.8282 billion euros) rose four notches to 73rd.

U.S. companies accounted for 35% of the top 100, followed by Japanese (13), German (13), Chinese (eight), South Korean (four), French (four), Dutch (three), Swiss (three), Taiwanese (three), and British (three) firms.

The report covers 2,500 companies in 46 countries that recorded an R&D investment of at least 25 million euros in the fiscal year of 2017. Those companies’ total investment was 736.4 billion euros during the period, up 8.3% from a year ago.

Copyright © BusinessKorea. Prohibited from unauthorized reproduction and redistribution