It has been reported that Korean companies have become largely stagnant amid the battle between U.S. and Chinese companies for global market share in the high-tech industry.
According to a survey of 74 items by the Nihon Keizai Newspaper on July 8, the U.S. ranked first in the global market last year with 25 items, Japan 11 and China 10. South Korea, on the other hand, topped seven items, including Samsung Electronics' smartphones, OLEDs, DRAMs and LG Display's large liquid crystal panels.
Samsung Electronics, previously the No. 1 player in VR headsets, made up 8.4 percent of the market, giving up its No. 1 position to Japan's Sony Corp. and falling sharply to No. 4.
Meanwhile, Chinese-based companies increased their market share in nine items, including smartphones, while U.S.-based companies increased their market share in eight.
Huawei, which focuses on developing 5G technology -- a next-generation telecommunication standard -- maintained its lead as it increased its share of base stations for mobile telecommunications by 3.0 percentage points in one year. Huawei also ranked No. 3 in smartphones, closely following No. 2 U.S. Apple.
In smart speakers that use artificial intelligence (AI), Google and Amazon held more than 60 percent of shares, with Alibaba and Xiaomi closely following.
Meanwhile, last week, the South Korean government raised the investment tax deduction rate for large companies in productivity-enhancing facilities to 2 percent from the current 1 percent to boost corporate investment. The increase in the tax deduction rate is expected to benefit LG Display, which plans to invest around 8 trillion won this year.