Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, July 31 (Xinhua)-- with the sharp decline in exports of semiconductors, monitors and electronic equipment, the industry is increasingly worried that South Korea's electronics industry is losing market competitiveness, according to BusinessKorea.

▲ Tu Yuan Pexels, according to South Korean electronics industry sources, there is growing concern that South Korean smartphones, one of South Korea's main exports, are losing their capital to compete with Apple iPhone and cheap Chinese smartphones.

Samsung Electronics continued to rank first with 2.596 smartphones sold last year, with a market share of 22%. However, analysts say the South Korean smartphone giant is losing ground compared with Apple's 2.247 billion iPhone sales last year.

Last year, the world's best-selling smartphone model was the iPhone 13, accounting for about 5 per cent of global smartphone sales, according to market research firm Counterpoint Research. IPhone 13 Pro Max ranked second and iPhone 14 Pro Max ranked third.

On the other hand, Samsung Galaxy smartphone series has two models in the top 10. Galaxy A13, which is not part of the Galaxy flagship series, ranked fourth and Galaxy A03 ranked 10th. These models are popular in densely populated areas such as Latin America, India and Africa. This shows that Samsung Galaxy series is losing the influence of high-end smartphone brands and is being pushed into the low-cost smartphone market.

Chinese smartphone maker Glory began accepting orders for Magic V2 foldable phones in China on July 12. The Magic V2 weighs 231g and is only 9.9mm thick when folded and 4.7mm thick when unfolded. It sells for 8999 yuan, which is cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, which sells for about 2 million won (CTOnews.com Note: currently about 11200 yuan). Glory ranks outside the top five in the global market rankings, but climbed to fourth place in China in the first quarter of this year, with a market share of about 15 per cent, surpassing Xiaomi and Huawei.

In other markets, South Korean companies have lost out to Chinese companies, such as vacuum cleaners and drones.

According to GFK, a global market intelligence company, the market for floor-sweeping robots in South Korea will grow to 290 billion won (currently about 1.624 billion yuan) in 2022, an increase of about 41 percent over the previous year.

Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics sell floor-sweeping robots through Bespoke and Object Collection, respectively, but their global market share is minimal. Roborock (Stone Technology) ranks first in South Korea's floor sweeping robot market, and Kovos ranks first in the global market, both of which are Chinese companies.

South Korean companies also face an uphill battle in the wireless vacuum cleaner market. The global market for cordless vacuum cleaners is expected to grow from $6.73 billion last year (currently about 48.187 billion yuan) to $9.43 billion in 2026 (about 67.519 billion yuan), according to market research firm ReportLinker.

However, Europe's Dyson is dominating the high end of the market. Roborock's Dyad Pro is a dry and wet cordless vacuum cleaner that was launched on June 26 and sold out within 11 days of its launch in South Korea. In addition, China Xiaomi is targeting the low-end wireless vacuum cleaner market, launching low-cost wireless vacuum cleaners in the range of 100000 to 200,000 won (currently about RMB 560 to 1120 yuan).

The fast-growing drone market in recent years is also dominated by Chinese products. According to the UAV Market report, the global UAV market is expected to grow from $17.6 billion in 2019 (currently about 126.016 billion yuan) to $42.8 billion in 2025 (currently about 306.448 billion yuan).

By 2021, China's DJI Innovations dominated the global civilian UAV market with a share of 76.0%. Intel (4.1%) and unicorn (3.6%) are just behind DJI, but the gap is more than 18 times. Although the United States and Israel dominate the military drone market, Turkey has recently expanded its military drone market share with low-cost TB2 drones.

However, South Korean drone companies have average sales of only 2 billion won (currently about 11.2 million yuan) and have an average of only 11 employees.

Analysts say Chinese-made drones are not only competitive in price, but also more technologically advanced. According to data released earlier this year at a public hearing on the revitalization of South Korea's drone industry, South Korea's drone technology is only 60 per cent of the average in leading countries such as China.

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