South Korean and Chinese companies are accumulating patents on meta-universe hardware as the electronics industry looks for growth opportunities in areas other than smartphones, according to research. Among them, LG Electronics and Huawei are climbing up the rankings.
VR headset
IDC, a well-known market research company in the United States, predicts that by 2026, the global metaverse market will reach 74.7 billion US dollars, a four-fold increase within five years. Specialized hardware plays a key role in accessing virtual spaces, such as the 3D headset unveiled last month by Facebook parent company Meta.
According to the metaverse patent ranking compiled by foreign media and Tokyo research company Cyber Creative Institute, since 2016, LG has submitted the most metaverse patent applications, and its ranking has climbed from No. 11 in 2010-2015 to No. 1. Samsung Electronics came in second. Display color schemes and semiconductors are among South Korean companies’ strong suits, quickly gaining a foothold in core components rather than headsets and other finished products.
Huawei, which did not make the top 20 in previous surveys, has now jumped to fourth place with a large number of patents related to image and display processing. ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, has also strengthened its metaverse development capabilities through acquisitions.
Meta is third, Microsoft is fifth, and Intel and Apple are also among the six U.S. companies that made the top 10. Sony is the only Japanese company to make it into the top 10, coming in at number six.
Taken together, the top 20 companies filed a total of 7,760 metaverse patents, of which the United States accounted for 57%, followed by South Korea with 19%, and China with 12%. Japanese companies accounted for 8%.
