May 6, 2020
From smartphones, Quantum computing, automobiles, gaming, electronics to shipbuilding; Asian companies dominate their respective fields. Ever wondered why the iPhone 8 was suddenly a few hundred dollars more expensive than the previous generations? The answer is Samsung.
Samsung’s OLED screen technology is unrivaled, its closes competitor is another South Korean company, LG Electronics. Therefore when Apple finally changed its LCD screens to OLED, Samsung was waiting and set the price, an extra $120 per screen for Apple, according to TechCrunch.
Smartphones. Situations like these have become an issue for American and European companies who have fallen behind, especially Europe—with Europe’s Nokia being completely out of the race.
Apple and Google’s solution to break Samsung’s 90% global market share on OLED technology was to throw billions of dollars to LG Electronics, which still keeps the money in South Korea and simply replaces one Korean company with another. Samsung also manufactures Apple’s A-Series chips as well as other key components and recently surpassed America’s Intel as the largest chip manufacturer.
It’s not just OLED screens and microchip manufacturing that gives Samsung a controlling edge over Apple, it’s also 4G-5G technology. Some may recall the Obama Administration overturned Samsung’s victory over Apple in 2013. Samsung developed 3G and 4G and made the U.S. trade panel ban all Apple products using 3G technology initially, which would eventually allow Samsung to take Apple back to court and ban all Apple products using 4G technology. President Obama saw this as a very dangerous move at the time and forced Samsung to allow Apple to use 3G and 4G technology at a reasonable price. Coincidentally, about a year after President Obama saved Apple, the company donated $100 million to his ConnectED program, according to The Verge.
Microprocessors. Japan’s Softbank is the owner of ARM—a company that enjoys a 90% market share of smartphone chips. ARM’s architectural designs are the most efficient and powerful in the industry and it would be impossible to duplicate. Over 100 billion ARM chips have been sold as of 2019.
Taiwan’s TSMC controls over 50% of the entire electronic chip market and their lead is growing. They are the only company in the world capable of producing the most advanced chips in the world and currently three generations ahead of America’s Intel. They supply the American, European, and Japanese auto industry with chips as well as Apple, Intel, and AMD.
Some analysts foresee a possible chip shortage when the COVID-19 pandemic ends. The sudden demand for these TSMC chips after months of lockdown will far surpass Taiwan’s manufacturing capabilities and the world will understand the significance of how important Asian tech is.
Quantum Computing. Considered to be the Holy Grail of technological advancement with computers so powerful, a single quantum computer would be 100 million times faster than any computer today. Quantum computers would break any military code within seconds and render all passwords useless. China currently takes the lead.
Coming in neck-and-neck with Chinese researchers would be Google’s Quantum research team, nearly 50% East/Southeast Asian. The type of diversity frowned upon because Asians should be capped at 20% in institutions like Harvard for the sake of “real” diversity.
Automobiles. As of 2019, Toyota Motors is the 10th largest company in the world and the second-largest automaker, right below Germany’s Volkswagen. Toyota’s sales reached a whopping $272.6 billion last year and they along with other Japanese car companies have been at the forefront of automobile technological development. Toyota recently won the last two 24 Hours of Le Mans with its TSO50 hybrid racer.
America’s Tesla is also made possible by Asian technology. Japanese tech-company Fuji Technica and Miyazu, which invented and developed Tesla’s light-weight chassis and electrical systems, according to Electrek. Japan’s Panasonic also developed Tesla’s light-weight, long-range batteries.
Robotics. Japan currently enjoys a 56% global market share in robotics. Softbank’s most recent takeover of Boston Dynamics has given the Japanese the leading edge. China comes in 2nd place with a 36% global market share and South Korea is 3rd place, a country smaller than the state of Ohio enjoys an 18% global market share in industrial robotics. The robots assembling your car to the robots organizing your local Amazon distribution center to robots someday carrying you to the bathroom in the hospital is dominated by Asian companies
Gaming. The video game industry is now $139 billion a year and growing. That makes it larger than the NFL, NBA, MLB, and the NHL combined and Japan’s Sony enjoys a substantial market share in the industry. Sony Playstation is currently 2nd place with 40.87%, right under Microsoft’s Xbox, which currently enjoys a 58.68% global market share.
The number of patents and trade secrets Asian countries control now makes it impossible for other developing countries to catch-up technologically. It’s like if a Chinese company tried to copy Google or Apple’s operating platform. Every international court would block it from even happening. That’s the type of control Asian countries now posses with microchips, microprocessors, quantum patents, certain automobile patents, robotics, even down to your 4K and 8K TVs (invented by Sony), and gaming platforms.
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