Samsung ranks top Global Innovator while Huawei gets 7th spot

Samsung Electronics is again recognized by Clarivate in its Top Global Innovators 2024 ranking as the world's most innovative company.

Despite the US sanctions, Huawei managed to make it to the 7^th place. The result somewhat echoes the top patent filer report released by the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO).

Huawei Technologies remained the top filer with 6,494 published PCT applications in 2023. Samsung Electronics of South Korea came in second (3,924 applications).

LG Chemical grabbed the 6^th spot, while the rest of the companies that made it to the top 10 list are all Japanese companies. Namely, Canon (2), Honda (3), Toyota (4), SeikoEpson (5), Fujifilm (8), and Fanuc (9).

Japan has the largest number of entries in the top 100 list, with 38 of them included this year, The United States had 17 entries in the top 100 list.

Electronics and computing equipment is the category with the largest number of top innovators, 26 of them in total.

Thirteen semiconductor companies were included in the top 100 list. They are: TSMC (23), MediaTek (32), Tokyo Electron (33), SK Hynix (40), STMicroelectronics (44), Realtek Semiconductor (45), Infineon Technologies (56), Kioxia (59), Applied Materials (67), Nanya Technology (72), and Winbond (76).

Source: Clarivate

Alessandro Cremonesi, Executive Vice President, Chief Innovation Officer, STMicroelectronics, said in a press release, "The continued strength of our innovation is achieved by placing ST at the center of a global innovation ecosystem, based on cooperative R&D with our global network of academic and private partners, helping us drive sustainable growth by enabling smarter mobility, more efficient power and energy management, edge AI, and the wide-scale deployment of cloud-connected autonomous things." In 2023 ST invested approximately 12.2% of net revenues in R&D, has over 9,500 R&D employees, and engages in extensive collaboration with leading research labs and corporate partners throughout the world.

There are 10 companies and 1 research institution from Taiwan that made it to the top 100 this year, including AUO (22), TSMC, Foxconn (27), MediaTek, Wistron (37), ITRI (43), Realtek Semiconductor (45), Nanya Technology (72), Winbond (76), Coretronic (80), and Delta Electronics (81).

Source: Clarivate Top 100 Global Innovators 2024 Report

However, the Clarivate report pointed out that the world's top 1000 most innovative entities' share of global innovation is shrinking, instead of growing. In 2016, they created more than one-third of inventions but down to 17% in 2023.

The rising influence of smaller entities has caught the eyes of the Clarivate report, attributing such effects as the result of using more progressive ways of working and more open approaches to innovation.

"The traceability of competition, markets, and technologies is no longer straightforward. As AI comes, the consequences are not obvious. When an industry is upended by another, the later implications may go unnoticed," according to the report.

The Derwent World Patent Index and the Derwent Patents Citation Index were the sources of data for the ranking. The methodology of the innovation ranking is to calculate an entity's global innovator score by multiplying its international factor by its median invention strength. The invention strength includes the tech influence of its invention, the level of economic asset the invention produced as a valid and novel idea, as well as the investment in the invention and the rarity of the invention on the development curve.