Pantech halts smartphone business to focus on IoT

South Korea’s once-mobile phone legend Pantech decided to temporarily halt its smartphone business and focus on Internet of Things and other new businesses, according to industry sources on Friday. An official at Pantech told the local media that the company will prioritize other businesses, likely to be IoT, rather than focus on the struggling smartphone business. (Pantech)“It is time to shift to the select and concentrated strategy,” the official said. “Patench has a competitive edge in the Io

May 12, 2017

Netmarble debuts on Kospi, marking Korea’s biggest IPO in 7 years

South Korea’s Netmarble Games officially went public on Korea’s main bourse Kospi on Friday, marking the country’s biggest initial public offering in seven years. 　Shares of the Korean mobile game giant opened for trading at 165,000 won ($146.70), above its IPO price of 157,000 won, and rose as high as 171,500 won, up 9.2 percent, in early morning trading before falling to hover slightly below the day’s opening price.The stocks closed at 162,000 won, down 1.82 percent from the opening price. The

May 12, 2017

IPTV business emerges as cash cow for mobile carriers

South Korean mobile carriers' Internet-based TV businesses have emerged as their stable source of profit on the back of an increase in the number of subscribers, data by the companies showed Friday.The country's three mobile carriers -- SK Telecom Co., KT Corp. and LG Uplus Corp. -- saw sales from their Internet protocol television business jump 10 percent to 20 percent in the first quarter of this year from a year ago, according to the data based on their first-quarter earnings reports. (Yonhap

May 12, 2017

[Exclusive] Former LG Uplus chief joins Huawei

Lee Sang-chul, South Korea’s former communications minister and chief of mobile carrier LG Uplus, is currently advising China’s Huawei, according to industry sources Thursday. On the official homepage of Huawei, Lee is named as chief adviser of Huawei, The Korea Herald confirmed.  Former communications minister and chief of mobile carrier LG Uplus Lee Sang-chul (Yonhap)The website also described Lee as standing adviser of LG Uplus and LG Group. But LG Group denied the indication, saying he had n

May 11, 2017

[Moon in Office] Will Moon Jae-in remove overregulation to spur new ICT growth?

The Korea Herald is publishing a series of articles delving into the economic policies and tasks expected of the new Moon Jae-in administration. This is the second installment -- Ed.South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-in faces the challenging task of bolstering the information and communication technology sector as the country struggles to retain its footing in the fast-advancing field of ICT amid growing competition from foreign rivals.During his campaign trail, Moon pledged to spur growth thr

May 11, 2017

Scientists develop multiple-colored solar cell

A group of South Korean scientists developed a solar cell that can take on multiple colors, the state-run science laboratory said Thursday, a discovery that could be used for power-generating windows.The team led by Min Byoung-koun developed the solar cell called CIGS that gives off color, which provides a useful aesthetic value, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology said. (Korea Institute of Science and Technology)"Beautiful violets and blues were created on the cover glass of a black C

May 11, 2017

SK hynix becomes world’s 3rd-biggest chipmaker

SK hynix moved up the global ranking of semiconductor suppliers with the largest sales improvement in the first quarter of 2017, showed a market researcher Thursday. The South Korean memory chip giant rose to become the world’s third-largest chipmaker by first-quarter sales, moving up two notches from a year earlier, according to data provided by research firm IC Insights. SK hynix raised $5.5 billion in sales for the first three months of the year, the data showed.  (Yonhap)The market researche

May 11, 2017

Apple's iPhone 7 most sold smartphone in world for Q1: data

The iPhone 7, the flagship smartphone of US tech giant Apple Inc., was the most sold handset around the globe in the first quarter, data showed Thursday, while Samsung Electronics Co. mostly shipped budget models over the cited period.According to the data compiled by industry tracker Strategy Analytics, Apple sold 21.5 million units of the iPhone 7 in the January-March period. The figure accounts for 6.1 percent of the combined shipment of 353 million units posted by smartphone makers around th

May 11, 2017

Koreans mostly use WiFi network for video streaming over LTE

South Korean smartphone users mostly used the WiFi network to enjoy video-streaming content rather than to use the long-term evolution services, data showed Thursday, apparently due to the burdensome price of the high-speed mobile network.According to the survey compiled by Nielsen Korea on South Korean users of Android smartphones in March, the WiFi network accounted for 90.7 percent of their time spent on video streaming services. Only 9.3 percent used the LTE networks to watch video content.

May 11, 2017

Samsung launches new tablet PC amid falling demand

Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Tab S3 will hit the market Thursday. It is the first new Samsung tablet PC in two years, but the prospects of the global tablet PC market are bleak due to falling demand. The South Korean tech titan said Wednesday it will release in Korea the 9.7-inch AMOLED display tablet PC equipped with the company’s signature S Pen and four embedded stereo speakers.The Galaxy Tab S3 was unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in February, but its official launch was strategically po

May 10, 2017

Samsung Elec to exhibit lifestyle TV mimicking art at Venice Biennale

Samsung Electronics will exhibit its lifestyle TV "The Frame" at the 57th Venice Biennale opening this weekend in Italy, the tech firm said Wednesday."The Frame" copies art with a bezel that looks like picture frames, a design concept targeting European consumers who work television sets into home decor. It offers UHD picture quality when turned on and shows a work of art when turned off.   Artist Lee Wan poses in front of "The Frame" TVs from Samsung Electronics that display his video work "Mad

May 10, 2017

Facebook temporarily down in Korea on Election Day

Some Facebook users in Korea were unable to access their social media accounts Tuesday morning, the day of the country’s presidential election.At around 10 a.m., users said they tried to log into their Facebook accounts, but were not able to gain access for around 50 minutes. The site only said, “Sorry, something went wrong. We’re working on it and we’ll get it fixed as soon as we can.”The Korean arm of the social media giant issued a statement around 11:30 a.m., saying, “Some users had difficul

May 9, 2017

Naver set to unveil AI-based smart speaker in summer

Naver Corp., South Korea's top Internet portal operator, plans to unveil an artificial intelligence embedded smart speaker, the WAVE, this summer, industry sources said Tuesday.According to the sources, Naver and its Japanese affiliate LINE Corp. are working to launch the smart speaker based on its AI virtual assistant, Clova CLOud Virtual Assistant, before the end of the first half. Naver Corp.'s auto infotainment platform, IVI (Yonhap)The WAVE speaker is said to be unveiled in Japan under the

May 9, 2017

LG Electronics rules out acquisition of Pantech

LG Electronics Inc. on Monday ruled out the rumor that the company is considering the acquisition of South Korea's No. 3 smartphone manufacturer, Pantech Co.Through a regulatory filing made after getting the request from the Korea Exchange, the main bourse operator, South Korea's No. 2 tech giant said it has never considered purchasing Pantech. (Yonhap)After facing financial troubles, Pantech was normalized in late 2015 after Solid Inc. listed the company on the secondary bourse Kosdaq acquired

May 8, 2017

[Election 2017] Tech giants aim to provide accurate, real-time data for presidential election

As South Korea prepares to hold its 19th presidential election Tuesday, the country’s major internet companies have set out to provide the public with accurate, timely and convenient information about the candidates and real-time voting updates. Naver, the operator of Korea’s most widely-accessed portal website, has a special section on its election page that will continuously update voting information as the results come in. The portal operator said it will display the information based on real

May 8, 2017

LG grows $2b brand in India after 20 years

In its 20th year in India, LG Electronics has grown to a $2 billion brand, owing to localization efforts, the company said Monday. According to company data, LG’s sales there grew about 60 times to reach $2 billion as of last year, having first entered the Indian market in 1997.  Indian consumers check out a water purifier at an LG Electronics shop in Noida, northern India, on Monday. (LG Electronics)In the past two decades, the number of LG employees and executives operating in the country expa

May 8, 2017

Cheaper clamshell phones favored by elderly consumers

Affordable flip phones launched by Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have proved popular among the elderly, according to statistics provided by SK Telecom’s T world Direct on Monday, which was Parents’ Day. Samsung’s Galaxy Folder LTE and LG’s Wine Smart Jazz were best-sellers among consumers in their 60s and 70s, comprising 77 percent and 75 percent of purchases respectively. (LG Electronics)The two representative clamshell phones were set at 57,000 won ($50.30) and 31,000 won, respectivel

May 8, 2017

[Health-tech Korea] Vuno's AI analyzes X-rays to provide instant estimate of bone development

The Korea Herald is publishing a series of articles highlighting South Korea’s promising startups in the emerging sectors of digital health care and next-generation medical devices. This is the eighth installment. – Ed.Recent advances in artificial intelligence have begun to revolutionize the field of medicine and health care, as machines show potential to improve the diagnosis of illnesses and treatment planning.At the core of the movement is a form of high-level machine learning called deep le

May 7, 2017

Number of people changing mobile carriers reaches 120,000 in May

The number of people who switched their mobile carriers in the first six days of May reached just shy of 120,000, industry data showed Sunday.The total who transferred to a new service provider in the six-day period that ended Saturday represents a 30 percent increase compared with the year before. This translates to a daily average of 19,000 people changing their carriers. (Yonhap)The spike in so-called number portability comes as local service providers offered hefty incentives to customers to

May 7, 2017

LG hits record phone market share in US

South Korean handset provider LG Electronics reached 20 percent share of the US smartphone market for the first time, solidifying its position as the world’s third-largest smartphone maker after Apple and Samsung. According to data from Strategic Analytics on Sunday, LG shipped 7.3 million smartphones in the first quarter of the year, accounting for a fifth of the world’s biggest handset market. The market share for LG rose nearly 3 percentage points from a year earlier. The gain follows steady

May 7, 2017