Why aren't I using tons of amazing South Korean and Swedish-designed products in my daily life if this is the case? (or jealous of all the great products they seem to have that I don't have access to?)
South Korea: Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Kia
Sweden: Spotify, Skype (ish), 4G LTE (via Ericsson), Volvo, some medicines via AstraZeneca (ish).
Also both produce various non-consumer products.
(And a lot of music, of course.)
It operates businesses in sectors like chipmaking, construction, IT, chemicals, power plants, shipbuilding, etc.
If you've seen a Samsung container ship, or a Samsung-built building (Burj Khalifa, Petronas Towers), you'll have gotten a glimpse at their size and scope.
Their consumer-facing businesses are just the tip of the iceberg.
Maybe on a normalized basis the picture looks a little different?
Also, totally unrelated, and I've never been to China, but based on the observations of Connie Chan (of Andreesen-Horowitz), it seems China has a bunch of innovations in the retail space [1] that most Americans aren't aware of. US innovation is still dominant no doubt, but I'm always fascinated by innovations that we don't hear about because it gives us a sense of perspective in the world.
edit; so the ranking is probably more of a "most innovation-oriented economies" [=higher ratio of R&D/IP industries to retail/manufacturing/agro/etc] rather than "countries creating the most innovations"