Korea ranks world’s No. 1 in 8 products including Samsung smartphone

Korea ranks world’s No. 1 in 8 products including Samsung smartphone. July. 07, 2015 07:09. bae2150@donga.com.

Korea ranked No. 1 in global market share in eight products among the 50 major products for last year as selected by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

According to the market share survey of the world’s major products and services for 2014 released on Sunday by the Japanese daily, the U.S. took the top spot with 16 products as No. 1 in the world. The U.S. was followed by Europe with 10 products as No. 1, Japan with nine, and Korea with eight, which positioned the country the fourth place in overall rankings. China had six products at the top in global market share. The newspaper has been selecting 50 products every year since 2000, considering growth potential and other factors. Korea had six products atop in the world in the 2013 survey.

As in the 2013 survey, Samsung enjoyed dominant lead by positioning at the top five of its products, including the smartphone. However, the company saw its market share decline from 2013. The daily said, “A dark cloud casts over Samsung’s dominance.”

Samsung’s smartphone market share sharply fell by 6.5 percentage points year-on-year to 24.5 percent last year. While the runner-up Apple of the U.S. saw its market share edged down by 0.3 percentage point to 14.8 percent, third-ranked Lenovo Group of China managed to elevate its share by 2.7 percentage points to 7.2 percent.

The Japanese daily analyzed that while China using the same operating system as Samsung is making explosive growth by banking on low prices, Apple is not in direct competition with Chinese players, because the U.S. firm uses its own operating system.

Samsung SDI ranked No. 1 in lithium-ion battery by controlling 23.5 percent, but saw its market share decline by 1.6 percentage points from the previous year due to sluggish sales of Samsung smartphones.