Chapter 6: Science & Engineering Indicators 93

Share of World Markets

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, the United States was the world's leading producer of high-tech products, responsible for over one-third of total OECD member country production during this period. U.S. global market share did decline slightly from 1981 to 1986, but the trend was reversed beginning in 1987. The U.S. share of the world market for high-tech manufactures grew irregularly after 1986, but by 1992, U.S. high-tech industries were able to recapture the market share lost during the early eighties.

While U.S. high-tech industry struggled to maintain market share during the 1981-92 period, Japanese high-tech industries followed a path of steady gains in global market share. In 1992, Japan accounted for nearly 28 percent of OECD member country production of high-tech products, moving up 6 percentage points since 1981. (See figure 6-4 and appendix table 6-4.)

Japanese gains in global high-tech markets appear to have been made at the expense of European Community high-tech producers: Germany, France, and Italy all steadily lost market share between 1981 and 1992. British high-tech producers actually gained market share for most of the eighties before joining the general European high-tech decline in 1989. This decline continued into the early nineties, ultimately leaving British producers with a smaller share of OECD high-tech production in 1992 than it held in 1981.

Footnote 7:

World market shares are calculated using data on OECD production contained in appendix table 6-4.

ContentsSearchContinue