Hyundai's Nov. sales fall 17% amid chip shortage

Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's biggest carmaker, said Wednesday its sales fell 17 percent last month from a year earlier amid global chip shortages. Hyundai Motor sold 312,602 vehicles in November, down from 377,193 units a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Domestic sales declined 11 percent to 62,071 units from 70,035, as the lack of semiconductor parts continued to affect vehicle production and sales, it said. Overseas sales dropped 18 percent to 250,531 from 307,158 amid the

IndustryDec. 1, 2021

Seoul stocks spike over 2% to snap 6-day slump

South Korean stocks rebounded more than 2 percent Wednesday, after plunging to the year's lowest point in the previous session. The Korean won rose against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) advanced 60.71 points, or 2.14 percent, to close at 2,899.72 points, ending its six-day slide. Trading volume was moderate at about 553 million shares worth some 12.1 trillion won ($10.3 billion), with gainers outnumbering losers 773 to 122. Foreigners bought a net 907

MarketDec. 1, 2021

Naver, SoftBank join forces for metaverse push

South Korean internet giant Naver on Wednesday laid out its strategies to enter the global market with its latest metaverse technology that allows hyperconnection between the real world and virtual reality. “We have recently joined hands with SoftBank to make an HD map of cities in Japan through our ALIKE solution. It will be an important stepping stone for Naver to bring future without borders,” said Seok Sang-ok, CEO of Naver Labs, during a press conference. Seok added that Nave

TechnologyDec. 1, 2021

[Battery+] 1%: Shocking profitability of EV battery biz

For every dollar Samsung SDI makes by selling electric vehicle batteries, it only pockets 1 cent in profit. In contrast, Samsung Electronics earned 30.4 cents for every dollar in chips it sold from July to September this year. It’s no wonder Samsung doesn’t have its own EV battery factory in the US, but is instead investing a whopping $17 billion to build its second chip plant there. As the numbers show, the EV battery business, despite the market hype, is not as attractive in te

IndustryDec. 1, 2021

Renault Samsung's Nov. sales more than doubled on exports

Renault Samsung Motors Corp., the South Korean unit of Renault S.A., said Wednesday its vehicle sales more than doubled last month from a year earlier on robust exports. Renault Samsung sold 11,743 vehicles in November, sharply up from 867 units a year earlier despite the extended COVID-19 pandemic, the company said in a statement. Domestic sales fell 15 percent on-year to 6,129 units from 7,207, but exports soared to 11,743 units from 867 on strong demand for its SUV models, it said. From Ja

IndustryDec. 1, 2021

Leasing firm, affiliate fined over illegal support

South Korea's antitrust regulator said Wednesday it has decided to impose a combined 2.37 billion-won ($2 million) fine on SYS Holdings and its affiliate for the parent company's illegal support. SYS Holdings, a leasing company, provided real estate collateral for free to its affiliate SYS Retail, an operator of an electronics goods discount outlet, between December 2009 and November 2021, according to the Fair Trade Commission (FTC). The move helped SYS Retail easily take 195 rounds of low-in

IndustryDec. 1, 2021

2nd batch of Chinese urea set to arrive in S. Korea

The second batch of urea under export inspection in China was to arrive in South Korea on Wednesday, the oceans ministry said, which is expected to help address supply crunch of urea solution, a key fluid needed in diesel cars to cut emissions. The ship carrying 3,000 tons of urea will arrive in the southeastern city of Ulsan around 9 p.m. after leaving from the Longkou port in China's northeastern province of Shandong on Monday, according to the ministry. It is part of the 18,700 tons of urea

IndustryDec. 1, 2021

SsangYong's Nov. sales fall 26% on lower demand

SsangYong Motor Co. said Wednesday its sales fell 26 percent last month from a year earlier amid a prolonged chip shortage. SsangYong Motor sold 8,748 vehicles in November, down from 11,859 units a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Domestic sales declined 32 percent to 6,277 units last month from 9,270 a year ago, while exports were down 3.4 percent to 2,501 units from 2,589 during the same period, it said. From January to November, its sales fell 3.4 percent to 75,351 autos from

IndustryDec. 1, 2021

Bio firms expand network, gain state project boost

The government’s Innovation-Communication Open Network (i-CON) project has been helping Korea’s small and medium-sized bio companies expand their networks and improve the quality of their products, according to the Korea Biotechnology Industry Organization. The organization is currently running the bio and health program of the i-CON project to support small and medium-sized enterprises to develop technology capabilities by using infrastructure and manpower owned by research instit

IndustryDec. 1, 2021

Canadian firm buys virtual land for $2.4m

A Canadian virtual real estate company Metaverse Group, a subsidiary of investment firm Tokens.com, bought a virtual land in a metaverse platform called Decentraland for $2.4 million. Established in 2017, Decentraland is an online platform that deals with virtual assets in the form of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, based on the Ethereum blockchain. Avatars in the Decentraland can earn money by embarking on speculative investment, hosting exhibitions, and conducting advertisement campai

IndustryDec. 1, 2021

Daewoo Shipbuilding wins W1.5t orders for 6 LNG carriers

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) said Wednesday it has bagged orders worth a combined 1.5 trillion won ($1.3 billion) to build six liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers. Under the deals with two companies in North America, the 174,000-cubic meter LNG carriers will be delivered by the second half of 2025, DSME said. DSME has won orders worth $10.44 billion so far this year, far exceeding its annual order target of $7.7 billion. With the latest deals, DSME's annual orders

IndustryDec. 1, 2021

FTC executive elected as OECD committee’s bureau member

South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission said Wednesday that its secretary general Shin Bong-sam has been elected as a bureau member of the OECD’s Competition Committee. According to OECD, major objective of OECD Competition Committee is to inform and encourage senior regulators and antitrust enforcers to act consistently on enforcement of competition laws.  The committee is comprised of representatives from 16 member countries which lead the enforcement of competition laws. A tot

IndustryDec. 1, 2021

Samsung Heavy succeeds in reselling drill ship for $245m

Samsung Heavy Industries Co. said Wednesday it has signed a $245 million deal with a European company to sell its drill ship it has failed to deliver due to a botched deal. "The deal will help improve our financial health along with our recent sale of new shares," Samsung Heavy said in an emailed statement. The drill ship sold to the European company is one of two drill ships that Swiss-based offshore driller Transocean Ltd. relinquished without specifying a reason in September 2019.

IndustryDec. 1, 2021

S. Korean manufacturing index above par for 14th month in Nov.: IHS Markit

South Korea's manufacturing activity remained in the expansionary phase for 14 months running in November on brisk exports, a global market researcher said Wednesday. The purchasing managers' index (PMI) of the country's manufacturing sector came to 50.9 last month, up 0.7 point from the previous month, according to a survey by IHS Markit. Since October 2020, South Korea's PMI, a key measure of factory activity in a country, has been above the 50-point mark that separates contraction from expa

EconomyDec. 1, 2021

WSTS halves growth prediction for memory chip market next year

A semiconductor industry tracker on Wednesday cut in half its growth projection of the global memory chip market next year. World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS), a nonprofit organization of chipmakers, forecast the memory market to expand 8.5 percent year-on-year to $171.6 billion next year, down from a growth rate of 18.4 percent with $190.7 billion it forecast in its August report. While the agency did not elaborate, falling DRAM prices and an expected slowdown in memory demand are be

EconomyDec. 1, 2021

S. Korea's 5G users top 19m in October: data

The number of smartphone users on 5G mobile networks had topped 19 million as of October, data showed Wednesday, as new smartphone launches boosted user growth in the latest generation networks. The total number of 5G users reached 19.38 million in October, accounting for around 27 percent of the total 72.15 million mobile subscriptions in the country, according to the data from the Ministry of Science and ICT. South Korea, which has a population of 52 million, first commercialized 5G networks

IndustryDec. 1, 2021

Seoul stocks open slightly higher on tech, bio reboun

South Korean stocks opened higher Wednesday on advances in tech and bio shares despite overnight falls on Wall Street. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) inched up 3.57 points, or 0.13 percent, to 2,842.58 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average retreated 1.86 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite declined 1.55 percent amid growing concerns about the omicron coronavirus variant and accelerating inflation in the world's largest eco

MarketDec. 1, 2021

S. Korea's exports hit fresh monthly high in Nov. on robust global demand for chips

South Korea's exports spiked 32.1 percent on-year to reach an all-time monthly high in November on the back of strong global demand for chips and petro products, data showed Wednesday. Outbound shipments came to $60.44 billion, compared with $45.75 billion from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. It marked the highest monthly figure since the country began compiling the data in 1956, and it is the first time that the monthly tally surpa

EconomyDec. 1, 2021

Disney+'s weekly users hit 1m in S. Korea

The number of weekly users on Disney+, the flagship streaming service of US media giant Walt Disney Co., topped 1 million in less than a month since its launch here, a market research firm said Wednesday. The streaming service's weekly users in South Korea reached 1.01 million from Nov. 15 to 21, becoming the fifth most used over-the-top (OTT) media service, according to data from market tracker Nielsen KoreanClick. Netflix ranked first with 4.71 million users, followed by homegrown players Wa

IndustryDec. 1, 2021

Foreign IBs cuts next year's Kospi targets amid rising volatility

Two major foreign investment banks (IBs) have revised down their targets of South Korea's key stock index for 2022 amid rising market volatility following the discovery of the omicron coronavirus variant, industry sources said Wednesday. In a recent report on South Korea, Goldman Sachs has cut its 2022 target of the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) to 3,350 from an earlier estimate of 3,700. Goldman Sachs said its downgrade reflects the characteristic of the South Korean sto

EconomyDec. 1, 2021