[THE INVESTOR] Sales of South Korea‘s top companies surpassed 1,900 trillion-won (US$1.71 trillion) in 2015 with the top 4 percent taking up more than 70 percent share, according to data on Oct. 11

According to the data by the Korea 20000 Corporate Research Institute, the combined revenue of the firms that close their books on Dec. 31 reached 1,910 trillion won last year.

A total of 219 corporations posted sales of 1 trillion won or more, with the largest number of 4,802 firms registering sales in the range of 10 billion won to 50 billion won.

The top 4.2 percent, or 417 businesses, accounted for 73.4 percent of the total. Of the companies with sales of 1 trillion won or more, 107 were headquartered in Seoul.

Tech titan Samsung Electronics was the top revenue earner with 135 trillion won, which took up slightly over 7 percent of the total sales.

Samsung Electronics and 11 other companies reported sales of 1 trillion won or more.

(theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)