[Special Economy=Eunji Kim intern reporter]When it comes to Korea, there are a couple of industries the country specializes in.
It’s cars, smartphones, steel, electronics and manufacturing.
But, now data shows that there’s an urge for Korea to hold on to its excellence over these areas—tighter.
According to The Federation of Korean Industries, considering the above country’s last year 10 export items in global market share, China is surpassing her in its specialty in worldwide market share.
China’s Huawei vs. Korea’s Samsung
For example, Korea’s biggest IT company, Samsung, reported meager results: its second quarter market share fell to fifth rank, meaning its two-digit market share became one-digit 9%.
On the other hand, China’s Xiaomi smartphone is gaining popularity, and another cellphone manufacturer, Huawei, too, shipped up to 100 million smartphones.
Dram exchange, B2B e-commerce that conducts market research, released its third-quarter worldwide smartphone market shares and Huawei recorded 8.4%, second next to Samsung (24.6%) and Apple (13.7%).
This means that China is narrowing the gap between Korea in the smartphone industry and consequently, the latter country now has something to worry about.
Meanwhile, China’s memory chip maker, Tsinghua Unigroup, acquired Sandisk, a firm that offers flash memory storage solutions to consumers, and entered the SSD market to compete with Samsung.
‘Hyundai Motors Group’ underperforming in China?
Korean motor industries in China also aren’t performing up to par. Hyundai and Kia motor companies received “China shock,” when their sales volume suddenly plummeted in July to last year’s third quarter level 2.
On a rank of car purchase rates in China, Hyundai didn’t make the list—in 6 years.
China’s massive steel exports to Korea
There’s another battle roaming between these two countries in the steel industry. Due to economic slowdown, Chinese businesses are selling their steel products abroad. To exemplify, Chinese steel products that were exported to Korea this July exceeded 1 million 347 thousand tons.
Since Asia’s steel price has decreased 40% in one year, and with the advent of low prices and lack of steel demand, Korea and China are in a battle over who will come out on top in this industry.
Chinese government’s stimulus measures
Currently, China is deploying stimulation measures to pump up the manufacturing industry. Its “China manufacturing 2025 plan” is aiming at her being one of the big manufacturing giants like Japan and Germany.
The country will also foster next generation’s 10 businesses like IT and aerospace to attract foreigners and to enter into the international investment market.
And, under the auspices of the government, china is keeping a keen eye on R&D investment. According to LG Economic Research Institute, looking at 1,000 businesses with the most R&D expenses, in 2005, china only had 8 industries pertaining to this list. But last year, that increased 14 times to 114.
With all these government policies, China is pushing its effort to compete with Korea, for one—and ultimately win.
Experts say that for Korea to not lose out, she must consider these Chinese government measures and work together. Or, invest more in research and development to strengthen high-value added products and increase business economic efficiency.
They’re calling for Korea to produce unique products that go along with the “Korean wave,” and “soft power” contents and also adjust regulations in businesses that are struggling due to emissions trading limit.