Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
R&D ramp up: Investments expected to intensify in China
R&D | China
September 24, 2021 – Chinese companies have strong commercial and political incentives to reduce their reliance on overseas innovation performance for the core technologies in their products. In our 2021 China Product Development survey, some 80 percent of respondents expect the increase in the R&D intensity of Chinese companies to exceed global industry averages.
To read the article, see “China’s digital R&D imperative,” August 16, 2021.
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Visual form
Two-row 100 percent stacked horizontal bar chart.
Layout / body structure
The chart places two full-length horizontal bars one above the other, with Global on top and China below. Reader scans left to right across the four expectation buckets on each row and then compares the two rows directly.
What is being compared
The chart compares expected change in R&D expenditures over the next one to two years for respondents thinking about companies globally versus companies in China. It is a geography comparison broken into four expected-growth ranges.
Measurement system
The measurement is percent of respondents, and each row sums to 100 percent. The segments are split into flat or decrease, increase 1 to 5 percent, increase 5.01 to 10 percent, and increase above 10 percent.
Visible structure inside the graphic
Each row is divided into four color-coded blocks that progress from dark on the left to brighter blue on the right as expected growth increases. The segment values are printed inside the bars, so the reader can compare both the size and the exact share of each expectation bucket.
Main takeaway from the visual
The lower China row is visibly shifted toward the higher-growth categories, showing that respondents expect companies in China to raise R&D spending more aggressively than companies elsewhere.
Key standout values or extremes
Globally, 35 percent expect flat or decreasing R&D, 40 percent expect a 1 to 5 percent increase, 19 percent expect a 5.01 to 10 percent increase, and 6 percent expect increases above 10 percent. For China, those shares shift to 21, 44, 23, and 12 percent respectively, with the biggest visual difference in the >10 percent segment.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a static chart image with no in-chart controls to operate.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart image is the full visual on this page.