Electronics Industry of Korea
The Ministry of Knowledge Economy predicted that the output of the domestic electronics industry would grow at an annual average rate of 4.15% between this year and 2018, from approximately 315 trillion won to 386 trillion won, owing mainly to a global economy recovery and the popularization of smart devices in emerging markets. The ministry also forecast that the global electronics industry would grow 4.2% each year during the same period.
The growth in annual exports of the Korean electronics industry has been estimated at 4.27% for the same five-year period, from US$158 billion to US$194.7 billion, led by an increasing export of smart phones, tablet PCs, hybrid PCs and system-on-chip products and a recovery in the global electronics sector.
In the meantime, the TV industry is likely to post little growth due to the sluggish demand for LCD TV products and market saturation in advanced economies although there have been significant improvements in terms of hardware specifications characterized by OLED and ultra-HD TV technologies.
As two of the biggest problems with the domestic electronics sector, the ministry mentioned a vulnerable ecosystem and the stagnation of the growth of local electronics component manufacturers in terms of global market share. Korea fell two notches to sixth in the market between 2000 and 2010 whereas China and Taiwan jumped from eighth to second and fifth to third, respectively.
Between 2000 and 2009, all of the total output, the number of businesses and their employees increased in those segments highly dependent on large enterprises where Korea enjoyed the highest market share in the world, including semiconductor and display. However, the figures decreased in all of the industrial fields except for them. To deal with the situation, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy is planning to focus on strengthening the soundness of the electronics industry ecosystem by supporting small firms and come up with some policy plans to this end within the first half of this year.