South Korea's battle for technology hegemony: LG shakes Samsung status

Samsung and LG, the most famous international company in South Korea, have become rivals in years of competition. For LG, after years of being suppressed, it is the perfect time to catch up with Samsung, the enemy. At present, Samsung Group has a total of 14 or so listed companies, the total assets of more than Korea Kansai 20%,LG Group has 10 listed companies, the total assets of more than the South Korean Kansai 10%. The direct confrontation between the two is mainly embodied in electronic technology, involving home appliances, digital, television, display, mobile phones and many other fields. At the beginning of 2011, LG Electronics stock performance is still stronger than Samsung, but then LG's share price fell sharply, Samsung's share price has been rising, from market capitalisation, LG Electronic scale is relatively small, Samsung electronic scale is more than 10 times times. But in any case, LG is still a competitor to Samsung's headache. The simultaneous emergence of two head-to-head business surveys in the last one months means the relationship between the two giants is at loggerheads. September 14, Samsung Electronics officially announced that the South Korean prosecutors on the alleged sabotage of the LG Electronics company executives launched an investigation, only 10 days later, Samsung sued LG Electronics executives suspected of stealing Samsung Electronics air-conditioning technology, in fact, both sides in the OLED technology leaks have been a long mutual. It is noteworthy that Samsung is now strife, especially the core business of Samsung Electronics is experiencing the biggest development crisis in recent years. According to statistics, Samsung Electronics this year's total market capitalisation has evaporated about 30 billion U.S. dollars, which also let LG see the gap between the best time to reduce and Samsung. The data show that LG Electronics in the second quarter of this year to achieve revenue 15.4 trillion won, operating profits grew 26.5% to 606 billion won last year, net profit growth of 164.8% compared with the same period last year, and Samsung Electronics 2014 second quarter revenue for 52.35 trillion won, down 8.9%, Is the worst financial statement produced in nearly two years. Samsung, which has been the world's largest smartphone maker since 2012, has seen a three-quarter decline in revenues for the first time in a row, and Samsung has even lowered its operating profit forecast by 17.5% to 4.5 billion dollars for Samsung's third quarter. Analysts point out that Samsung Electronics's most heavily reliant smartphone business is now suffering from both Chinese handset makers and Apple's two-pronged travails. In the second quarter of this year, Samsung Electronics has been overtaken by some smaller rivals in the smartphone market in China and India, and Apple's announcement of IPhone6 and IPhone6 Plus has significantly narrowed the dominance of Samsung Electronics in the big-screen smartphone market. In the second quarter of 2014, LG's smartphone product shipments grew 20% to 14.5 million, a record high. LG said in a recent statement that the company's smartphone products G3 sales will be more than 10 million, as its first to achieve tens of millions of smartphone products. In addition, LG is demonstrating a more aggressive marketing strategy at home and in markets such as China and India.Of course, overall, in the mobile phone business, LG and Samsung still have a clear gap, the future of the two more intense competition will also be reflected in the television, home appliances and smart home market areas. OLED into LG beyond Samsung's important chips Samsung and LG are currently the world's two largest television manufacturers. Display search data show that the first quarter of this year, Samsung Electronics for the first 29.6%, LG Electronic Global Television share of 16.9% in the second. In the UHD, OLED TV market, these two companies remain the de facto leader. In the UHD television market share, Samsung Electronics in the first quarter of this year still with 21.6% market share leading LG Electronics 10%. LG chose to bet on OLED, hoping to overtake Samsung to establish a global television leadership position. Only from the technical level, OLED display technology will undoubtedly replace the liquid crystal technology, leading the next step in the development of color TV industry. However, the mature technology does not mean that the product will be successfully imported into the market, OLED good product rate is not high, there is no large-scale production and high costs led to the end of the market price high. In the face of high prices, sales are hard to achieve expectations. According to the Austrian-dimensional consulting analyst, 2013 Global OLED TV products shipments of only 5000 units, and had been expected 2013 global OLED TV will have 20000 units of sales, to 2017 spike to 4 million units. LG once defined the 2014 as OLED development year, but the development of OLED industry, the need for upstream and downstream enterprises and the mainstream of the industry to promote, Panasonic, Sony and other former OLED camp members quit, let LG Electronics appear weak. As the development of OLED business, the largest competitor, Samsung Electronics this year also chose to wait and see, the company's vice President Kim foreign claims will be postponed OLED, fully promote UHD. In terms of operating systems, Samsung has been pushing the Tizen system independently, while LG has used webOS as its key research and development direction for smart TVs. Fortunately, in the world's largest color TV production and consumer market in China, OLED has been Skyworth, Konka, Tcl and other enterprises echoed, in addition to the supply of LG itself, LG Display is also actively strive to become the Japanese Panasonic OLED TV panel suppliers. LG began slashing prices for OLED, taking into account the diversity of OLED products. Zhengyu, President of the Asia region of LG Electronic Black Power division, said that in 2014, LG electronic OLED TV sales were expected to be more than 100,000, of which China accounted for more than 15%, and plans to sell 1 million units globally next year. If OLED eventually replaces UHD as the global TV industry, LG will have the opportunity to surpass Samsung in television. Of course, in the short term, still facing greater challenges, such as China's home appliance companies are still focused on 4K technology and Intelligent television promotion, for OLED more still in the wait and see, Beijing Oriental, huaxing and other panel manufacturers also do not provide OLED panel volume of the plan. Addition，To promote the popularization of OLED television, prices also have a large reduction of space to reach 20000 yuan or even 150 million yuan, then OLED will accelerate the pace of entry to ordinary families. Seize the commanding heights of intelligent home in the refrigerator, washing machine, kitchenware and other household products, the two giants have also been competitive enemies. 2013 LG Electronics has announced that its washing machine global market share of 12%, is the world's largest manufacturer of washing machines. This year, Samsung LG began to focus on smart home, both said it would build an intelligent home ecosystem. With the continuing heat of the smart home industry and the madness of the tech giants ' actions, smart homes are being rendered a big wind. Google 3.2 billion U.S. dollars after the smart home company Nest, Another 555 million dollars to acquire the surveillance camera company Dropcamt, Microsoft and home Automation technology company Insteon Cooperation, and launched the Microsoftventure incubator to support the relevant start-ups; Apple announced in WWDC Congress that the next generation of operating systems will add HomeKit intelligent home control platform. Samsung Electronics Consumer division president Yunfugen said the family will become the future of Electronic Technology Innovation Center. Samsung has invested in hardware, software, systems, platforms and patents, and this year bought 200 million U.S. dollars for smart home start-ups SmartThings, which allows users to connect lighting, door locks and other devices to smartphones-controlled systems; August, Samsung also announced acquisitions of U.S. air conditioner dealer Quietside. At this year's CES show, LG released the HomeChat Intelligent Home Service, which will enable users to control the washing machines, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and other household appliances through the dialogue commands, traditional appliances not only through a variety of app programs to continuously expand the new features and application methods, But also can through the Internet Terminal Unified management and operation. In September, the German Consumer electronics exhibition, LG demonstrated its own intelligent home appliances with the Internet platform, covering television, refrigerators, washing machines and a variety of embedded small appliances, to create a future network of home smart home prototype. LG in the refrigerator to emphasize the intelligent and networked functions, equipped with a large-screen LCD screen, through the intelligent system to realize the rapid diagnosis and repair of refrigerators, intelligent temperature control and other functions; smart washing machines make it easier to do laundry, and recommend and automatically apply the best settings in various laundry scenarios. At present, Samsung LG Two companies are committed to the development of Intelligent Home Service platform, trying to get more enterprises to participate in. Samsung has earlier cooperated with companies such as Intel and Dell to set up an open Internet alliance to address issues such as the standardization of interconnection technologies for smart devices, and LG set up a AllSeen alliance with Cisco and Qualcomm last December to promote the development of the Internet of things. LG Electronics announced in a statement that the company reached an agreement with Microsoft, the future two companies will work closely together for corporate customers and consumers to introduce MicrosoftEnd-to-end Computing platform products and services. LG plans to publish several products using Microsoft Solutions in next year's Las Vegas consumer Electronics Show.