Recent data shows that research and development(R&D) spending relative to revenue by South Korea’s top ten companies are three-quarters that of the global top ten firms.

Local company appraiser CEO Score compared South Korea’s top ten conglomerates and the top ten global companies in terms of their R&D investment as a percentage of their revenues in the third quarter.

The data showed that South Korean conglomerates’ R&D investments reached only 76 percent on average of that of their global counterparts.

Spending by local companies involved in the IT electrical and electronics industry and the petrochemical sector was 96 percent and 84 percent of that of their counterparts, respectively. 

However, local steel companies’ R&D investment stood only at 40 percent of the global average.

Samsung Electronics and SK Innovation were the only ones among the local top ten firms that spent higher portions of their revenues in R&D spending compared with the global top ten companies.