S. Korea’s top streamers make W671m a year

South Korea’s top 1 percent of streamers earned an average of 671 million won in 2019, according to data released Sunday by the National Tax Service. 　 According to a report by Yang Kyung-sook of the ruling Democratic Party here, the top 1 percent of tax-registered streamers by income, or 27 individuals, made a total of 18.1 billion won, accounting for around 21 percent of the total income made by all local one-person media creators registered with the tax office. The number of one-perso

Feb. 14, 2021

Nexon provides all-time high dividends to its parent company in 2020

Nexon, South Korea’s largest game developer, has paid a record amount of cash in dividends to its parent company NXC after posting all-time high earnings last year, according to the Japanese electronic disclosure system Sunday. According to the Electronic Disclosure for Investors‘ NETwork, Nexon provided a dividend of 29.9 billion yen (320 billion won) to its parent company last year. In total, Nexon provided 61.4 billion yen of dividends through last year, up around 30 percent fr

Feb. 14, 2021

Tough settlement talks await SK Innovation

With a defeat after a two-year legal battle against LG Energy Solution in the United States, the only desirable option for SK Innovation to minimize impact seems to be settling with their domestic archrival, according to industry sources on Sunday. In a final ruling made by the US International Trade Commission on Wednesday, SK Innovation was slapped with a 10-year ban on importing lithium-ion battery products to the US, with a grace period up to four years, for stealing trade secrets from LG.

Feb. 14, 2021

Telcos pin hope on further 5G adoption this year

South Korean mobile carriers are aiming for mass user migration to 5G networks this year after failing to meet their subscriber targets in 2020 amid the pandemic. The country ended last year with a total 11.85 million 5G subscribers, with SK Telecom Co., the country's largest wireless carrier, leading the pack with 5.48 million users, followed by KT Corp. at 3.62 million and LG Uplus Corp. at 2.75 million, according to ICT ministry data. The total figure fell short of initial forecasts of arou

Feb. 14, 2021

Naver, Kakao employees pocket 'bonuses' amid brisk performance

Naver and Kakao -- the two major South Korean tech companies -- have recently provided "bonuses," such as stock options and shares, to their employees amid record-breaking performances    Annual sales of Naver -- South Korea's top internet portal operator -- and Kakao -- the operator of the country's top mobile messenger, KakaoTalk -- both jumped to all-time highs of 5.3 trillion won ($4.8 billion) and 4.15 trillion won, respectively, in 2020. The two tech firms have been c

Feb. 13, 2021

Electroacupuncture can improve sleep, study suggests

Insomnia is one of the most common sleep disorders. According to the National Health Insurance Service, some 640,000 people visited hospitals due to insomnia in 2019. The number of such visits has steadily increased over the past five years. There might be hope. A recent study has found that electroacupuncture can help people suffering from insomnia. Used often in Korean traditional medicine, electroacupuncture involves administering small electric currents using thin needles inserted into

Feb. 11, 2021

ITC backs LG Energy in trade secret dispute, issues 10-year import ban on SK

A US trade panel on Wednesday ruled in favor of South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solution Ltd. in a trade secret case and issued a 10-year import ban on some lithium-ion battery products by SK Innovation. The US International Trade Commission affirmed a preliminary ruling delivered in February 2020 to support LG's claims that SK used stolen trade secrets to develop its electric vehicle batteries. The ITC issued "a limited exclusion order" for 10 years to ban import of s

Feb. 11, 2021

Microsoft CEO says big tech needs clearer laws on online speech

Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said social-media services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube need clearer laws and rules to govern whether controversial “Unilateral action by individual companies in democracies like ours is just not Microsoft doesn’t currently run a consumer social media service, but it is among cloud-computing In the past several years, antitrust regulators have ramped up investigations into the market power of large technology companies, just

Feb. 10, 2021

[News Focus] Record earnings, but Kakao, Naver can’t just celebrate

South Korea’s two online giants -- Naver and Kakao -- had the best year ever in 2020, benefiting from the rise of e-commerce and the contactless trend. Yet, as the pain of those less fortunate grows, they may have to part with some of their profit if policymakers push ahead with an unprecedented profit-sharing plan they have vowed to introduce. Kakao, the company behind the country’s near-ubiquitous messaging app KakaoTalk, on Tuesday reported a whopping 120.5 percent on-year jum

Feb. 9, 2021

Video calls to be free during Lunar New Year amid pandemic

Video calls will be free of charge during the Lunar New Year holiday to encourage virtual family meetings, the ICT ministry said Tuesday, as the country's efforts to curb new coronavirus cases limit in-person contact. The Ministry of Science and ICT said the country's three major telecom operators -- SK Telecom Co., KT Corp. and LG Uplus Corp. -- agreed to not charge for video calls made over the upcoming holiday period, which falls on Feb. 11-14 this year, for all smartphone users in the count

Feb. 9, 2021

Google to comply with ‘Netflix Law’

The South Korean government has asked US tech giant Google to take preemptive measures to ensure stable services, while demanding the company notify local users in Korean language should there be service errors. Google will also operate a customer service space through which users can ask questions. South Korea’s ICT Ministry announced Monday its follow up measures regarding the global outage of Google’s services in December, during which users were unable to connect to Google pr

Feb. 8, 2021

LG smartphones sold for halved prices before announcement on fate of mobile unit

The last batch of smartphones by LG Electronics -- LG Velvet and LG Wing released last year -- are being sold with massive discounts and subsidies through mobile carriers before the company’s final decision on its planned sale of the smartphone business. According to the telecom industry Monday, the actual cost of buying an LG Wing, a dual-display smartphone released last September, has been reduced to around 400,000 won ($357) from 1.09 million won, amid sluggish sales.  Actual p

Feb. 8, 2021

S. Korea to spend over W600b on space projects this year

South Korea's science ministry said Monday it will invest 615 billion won ($549 million) in space projects this year, including launching its long-awaited first homegrown rocket and developing new satellites. The country plans to launch its first locally built Nuri rocket in October this year, committing 189.7 billion won this year to acquire technology to independently build space launch vehicles, according to the Ministry of Science and ICT. While the country sent its 140-ton Naro rocket int

Feb. 8, 2021

Google to make improvements for stable services in S. Korea

South Korea's ICT ministry said Monday that US tech giant Google will take measures to provide stable services, becoming the first company to come under the country's revised law that holds online content providers accountable for service errors. On Dec. 14 last year, multiple Google services, including YouTube, Gmail and Google Calendar, went down for around an hour globally, prompting the Ministry of Science and ICT to look into the matter. According to the ministry, Google experienced an au

Feb. 8, 2021

AI takes center stage in telcos' tech drive

South Korean mobile carriers are expanding services integrated with artificial intelligence (AI) technology as they shift focus from telecommunications to find new growth drivers. Last week telecom giant KT Corp. joined hands with Hyundai Home Shopping Network Corp. to establish an AI call center at the retail company's headquarters in Seoul. The service incorporates voice recognition and text analysis technology so that AI can help customers with simple questions and can carry out tedious tas

Feb. 7, 2021

Kakao introduces remote work solution, digital wallet at OECD event

Kakao introduced its newly developed mobile-based remote work solution and digital wallet during the second roundtable meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Digital for SMEs global initiative, the company said Friday. Kakao was the only official partner company from Asia to join the two-day event held online to promote discussions on how to enable small and medium-sized enterprises to make the most of the ongoing digital shift. At the meeting, Kakao intr

Feb. 5, 2021

S. Korea approves Celltrion's COVID-19 treatment for conditional use

South Korea‘s Drug Safety Ministry announced Friday it has approved Celltrion’s COVID-19 treatment candidate for conditional use. Conditional approval of Celltrion’s CT-P59, an anti-COVID-19 monoclonal antibody treatment candidate, has become the country’s first homegrown COVID-19 treatment. Celltrion’s CT-P59 will be administered only to COVID-19 patients at higher risk, including those over the age of 60 or with vascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases,

Feb. 5, 2021

Samsung Bioepis biosimilars sales in Europe grow 7.8%

Sales of biosimilars developed by Samsung Bioepis in European countries reached 866 billion won ($795 million) last year, the South Korean drugmaker said Friday, citing an earnings report from US partner Biogen. Samsung Bioepis is a joint venture between Biogen and Samsung Group’s biopharmaceutical unit Biologics. Its biosimilar sales are shared by the two companies. According to Biogen’s earnings report, sales of Samsung Bioepis’ three major autoimmune biosimilars -- Bene

Feb. 5, 2021

Korean tech employees complain about insufficient bonuses from profit-sharing programs

Tech industry employees in South Korea are outraged at the opaque payment systems that some companies use when administering profit-sharing programs. Employees at leading tech companies such as Samsung Electronics and LG Energy Solution were observed Friday to have posted complaints on online communities and social media about their bonuses and how they were calculated. The conflict came in the wake of an announcement by SK hynix that it would provide profit-sharing bonuses equivalent to 20

Feb. 5, 2021

Samsung applies for tax breaks for new chip plant in Austin

Samsung Electronics has asked local governments in Texas to provide tax breaks for its new chip plant in Austin, raising speculation that it is about to expand its production capacity in the US, according to news reports Friday. Reuters reported that the South Korean chipmaker is seeking combined tax abatements of $805.5 million over 20 years from Travis County and the city of Austin, among other tax breaks, citing documents filed with Texas state officials. There were rumors that Samsung

Feb. 5, 2021