Samsung Electronics executed the largest amount of capital expenditures (CAPEX), including facility investment, in 2021, according to the 2022 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard announced by the European Commission on Dec. 15.
Samsung Electronics’ CAPEX last year increased by 23.7 percent to 37,076.7 million euros (51.4 trillion won), which is the largest investment among 2,500 companies surveyed.
The Korean tech giant spent more than resource development companies such as PetroChina (36,259.6 million euros) and the Saudi Arabian Oil Co. or Aramco (28.17 billion euros).
In particular, the gap is wide compared to semiconductor companies such as Intel (17,949 million euros) and TSMC (26,758.6 million euros). However, Samsung Electronics’ CAPEX intensity, or the CAPEX to sales ratio, came in at 17.8 percent, falling short of Intel’s 25.7 percent and TSMC’s 52.9 percent.
In addition, last year, Samsung Electronics was named as the sixth-largest company in the world in R&D investment. The company invested 16,812.8 million euros in R&D, a 6.5 percent increase compared to the previous year. It was the only Korean company to be included in the Top 50.
However, in this year’s report, Samsung Electronics’ global R&D investment ranking was sixth, down two notches from fourth in 2021. After ranking first in the world in 2018, Samsung Electronics gradually fell to second in 2019, fourth in 2020 and 2021.
Companies that towered above Samsung in R&D investment were Alphabet (Google) with 27,866.8 million euros, Meta with 21,768.5 million euros, Microsoft with 21,642.2 million euros, Huawei with 19,533.8 million euros and Apple with 19,348.4 million euros.
Last year, the top 2,500 companies’ total R&D investment stood at 1,093.9 billion euros, surpassing one trillion euros for the first time ever. By country, 40.2 percent (822) of the companies were headquartered in the United States, followed by those in China with 17.9 percent (678), those in the EU with 17.6 (361), and those in Japan with 10.4 percent (233).
From Korea, 53 companies were listed on the list of the top 2500 global R&D companies. Apart from Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix (3,086.9 million euros and 57th place), LG Electronics (2,676.9 million euros and 65th) and Hyundai Motor (2,305.1 million euros and 79th) entered the top 100.
