A large share of the new businesses being pursued by South Korean companies — led by the country's four biggest conglomerates, Samsung Electronics, SK (034730), Hyundai Motor (005380) and LG (003550) — is concentrated in renewable energy and robotics. Analysts say the government needs to lay the groundwork for growth in those two heavily funded areas while expanding support so that companies can broaden their new ventures into a wider range of fields.
The Federation of Korean Industries said on Oct. 12 that it analyzed newly added business purposes in the articles of incorporation of the 1,000 largest listed companies by assets. Energy was the most common new business area, accounting for 31.1% of the total, followed by manufacturing and mobility at 19.8% and artificial intelligence at 12.3%.
By subcategory, renewable energy ranked first at 18.9% and robotics second at 11.3%, together making up 30.2% of the total. The group attributed the trend to rising corporate demand for renewable power as the government finalized and began implementing its 2035 Nationally Determined Contribution for greenhouse gas reductions and its plan to build RE100 industrial complexes. Robotics has also emerged as a new business that can create synergies with existing core operations such as manufacturing, as physical AI advances.
In the energy field, other leading new businesses were secondary batteries at 4.7%, hydrogen and fuel cells at 2.8%, energy storage at 1.9% and nuclear power and fusion at 1.9%. In manufacturing and mobility, aerospace and defense accounted for 3.8% and mobility 1.9%. Beyond energy and manufacturing and mobility, companies are also actively pursuing applications and cybersecurity at 8.5%, knowledge services at 6.6%, AI convergence services at 5.7% and data analysis and computing at 5.7%.
The number of new businesses varied widely by company size. The top 500 companies by assets listed an average of 2.1 business purposes classified as new ventures, 1.6 times more than the 1.3 recorded by the bottom 500. Among the bottom 500, energy and manufacturing and mobility accounted for 61.5% of new ventures, indicating limited expansion into other fields.
"Corporate entry into and expansion of new industries is concentrated in a few areas, such as renewable energy and robotics," said Lee Sang-ho, head of the economic policy division at the FKI. "Institutional support should be strengthened — including broader tax incentives for research and development and a more effective regulatory sandbox for new industries — so that companies can take on a wider range of new industrial fields and secure future competitiveness."