LG Chairman "gets" design

Massive budgets - hundreds of designers, and not just LG, Samsung is the same story. Are there more examples? What are the numbers for Korean auto companies? Is this the result of a benchmarking or some other businness process?

I remember a few years back the S.Korean Govt. declaring ID as a necessary core-competancy, building schools with a quota goal for design graduates by a certain year…

are they more successful than Asian (Japanese) predecessors at breaking into US markets because of Design?