MediaTek and ITRI Among 2014 Top-100 Global Innovators

MediaTek Inc. and the government-backed Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) of Taiwan are among the 2014 Top-100 Global Innovators chosen by the multinational media and information company, Thomson Reuters Corp.

It is the second consecutive year for Taiwan-based organizations to be honored, with the major pure silicon foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. having been named in 2013.

According to the organizer, the  rankings are based on an overall score including patent volume, success, globalization and impact metrics, with number of inventions not being decisive.

The top-100 honorees spent US$208 billion on R&D in 2013 to outpace the constituents of S&P 500 at a rate of 4:1, with the top- 100 innovators having increased  total R&D spending by nearly 17% year on year.

The organizer says the semiconductor and electronic-component industry continued to lead all other sectors in 2014, with 21 representative companies as MediaTek whose R&D spending rose 9% from the previous year, and still up 50% since the  program's inception, when there were just 14 semiconductor companies on the list. Computer hardware was the next most prolific industry with 13 companies, up 18% over the previous year, with 8 firms in the industrial sector to displace the automotive sector, from which 6 companies were named, down from 8 last year.

Thomson Reuters' statistics show that in 2013 the top-100 innovators of 2014 totally generated revenue of around US$3.6 trillion, coupled with an increase in R&D investment more than double their NASDAQ counterparts, whose R&D spending rose 8.18% to lag the 16.9% by the top-100, but exceed the 3.97% by S&P 500's.

The top-100 outperformed the S&P 500 for the fourth consecutive year, achieving year-over-year market cap weighted revenue growth of 12.6%, roughly double the 6.85% annual revenue growth generated by S&P 500 companies.

The majority of 46 top-100 innovators are from Asia this year for the the first time, with 39 based in Japan, four in South Korea, two from Taiwan and the Chinese company Huawei being a first-timer.

According to the organizer, intense competition in the smartphone sector is obvious in this year's Top-100 Global Innovators list, with the major players battling in the smartphone patent war being Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Google and BlackBerry.

Regardless of the top-100 trend to favor fast-moving, hyper-competitive industries as semiconductors/electronic component and computer hardware, for the second year running, a growing number of pharmaceutical companies, including Abbott Laboratories, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis and Roche, have become top-100 fixtures by virtue of strong global patent portfolios. (KL)