Samsung pins high hopes on Galaxy Note 7 launch

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics is pinning high hopes on its upcoming Galaxy Note 7 smartphone with a curved screen that will debut on Aug. 2 in New York, London and Rio de Janeiro. “Like its Galaxy S7 sibling that is receiving positive market reviews, the Galaxy Note 7 will meet market expectations,” a Samsung executive said in the firm’s second-quarter conference call on July 28. Together with its high-end flagship models, the company said its budget smartphones such as the Galaxy A, J and

July 28, 2016

Samsung bets on 10-nanometer chip technology

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics said in its second-quarter conference call on July 28 that it would for the time being focus on rolling out 10-nanometer semiconductors rather than moving onto still-fledgling 7-nanometer chips. “The 10-nanometer chip production boasts the highest efficiency and is fit for commercialization,” an official from the tech giant said in the conference call held in the morning. Samsung Electronics’ 10-nano class DRAM chips.The company added that it is ready to produc

July 28, 2016

Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge outsells its flat-screen sibling

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics said on July 28 that sales of the curved-screen Galaxy S7 Edge made up more than 50 percent of its total flagship S7 sales in the April-June period. The Korean tech giant didn’t reveal the specific sales figure of the S7 phones during the conference call on the day. Industry watchers estimate a combined 270 million S7 and its Edge variant phones have been sold in the first half of this year since their March launch. Running on the upbeat mood, Samsung has also

July 28, 2016

Samsung far outpaces Apple in smartphone shipments

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics said on July 28 it has shipped about 90 million handsets in the April-June period with smartphones making up more than 80 percent of the total. Samsung’s second-quarter smartphone shipments are estimated at about 72 million units, almost doubling its archrival Apple’s iPhone shipments of 40.4 million units during the same period.The Korean tech giant unveiled the sales figure in a conference call after announcing its second-quarter earnings earlier in the day.

July 28, 2016

Galaxy S7 drives up Samsung’s Q2 profit

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics said July 28 that its operating profit increased 18 percent on-year to 8.14 trillion won (US$7.19 billion) in the April-June period on the back of strong sales of the firm’s smartphones, the Galaxy S7 and its Edge variant in particular.Quarterly revenue increased 5 percent to 50.94 trillion won from a year earlier. Samsung’s IT & Mobile Communications division, in charge of the smartphone business, posted a whopping 4.32 trillion won operating profit, up from 2

July 28, 2016

3-D memory war intensifies

[THE INVESTOR] The world’s memory sector is sizzling as more global chipmakers are vying to take the upper hand in the development of a more advanced vertical, or 3-D NAND flash memory chip.First mass-produced by Samsung Electronics in 2013, the 3-D NAND memory, which stacks cells vertically inside for the sake of space efficiency, has gone through a technical makeover in the past three years.Samsung Electronics’ V-NAND memory chipThe first generation chip has 24 layers of cells while the second

July 28, 2016

Naver’s Q2 earnings surge 44% on upbeat overseas sales

[THE INVESTOR] South Korean Internet giant Naver on July 28 posted its second-quarter operating profit of 272.7 billion won (US$240 million), up 44 percent from a year ago, largely buoyed by soaring overseas sales of its immensely popular LINE mobile messenger. Revenue also soared 26.3 percent to 987.3 billion won during the April-June period.Overseas sales saw a whopping 43.1 percent growth to 349.7 billion won compared to a year ago, making up 35 percent of the company’s total quarterly earnin

July 28, 2016

Samsung inks patent licensing deal with Valencell

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics has recently inked a patent licensing deal with US-based biometric sensor developer Valencell in a move to further expand its presence in the soaring health care wearables market. Samsung Gear IconX earbuds that also work as a fitness trackerValencell has a highly cited patent portfolio in optical biometric sensor technology, which includes 35 patents granted and more than 70 additional patents pending. With the latest patent licensing deal, Samsung is expected

July 27, 2016

LINE swings into black

[THE INVESTOR] LINE, the Tokyo-headquartered mobile messenger operator, said on July 27 that the company’s operating profit improved in the April-June period thanks to strong sales in its ad and media content businesses.Announcing its first earnings result on the day since its IPO in Tokyo and New York this month, the company said it logged 8 billion yen (US$75.74 million) in operating profit, up from an operating loss of 2.4 billion yen in the second quarter of last year. It also recorded 33.9

July 27, 2016

LG Innotek suffers W34b operating loss in Q2

[THE INVESTOR] LG Innotek, the electronics parts unit of LG Group, suffered an operating loss of 34 billion won (US$30 million) in the April-June period, the company said in its quarterly earnings report on July 27. Revenue stood at 1.12 trillion won, down 22.6 percent from a year ago.The company said the slowing demand for smartphones has affected its overall sales negatively, adding that it would making a big push on the more lucrative automotive parts business as its new growth engine.In the

July 27, 2016

SK Telecom steps up development of advanced AR, VR tech

South Korean network operator SK Telecom said Wednesday it has partnered with Israel-based 3-D sensor processing developer Inuitive Ltd. to step up its development of solutions based on augmented and virtual reality technology.SKT and Inuitive signed a memorandum of understanding in Seoul on the day, agreeing to jointly work on new AR-and VR-based solutions under development by SKT for mobile phones and small electronic devices.SKT plans to merge its AR and VR tech brand “T-Real” with Inuitive’s

July 27, 2016

LG to invest W2tr in OLEDs

LG Display’s latest plan to make an additional investment in plastic organic light-emitting diodes indicates that Samsung and LG would be double vendors for Apple’s new iPhone to be unveiled in 2018, industry sources said Wednesday. LG Display said Wednesday it plans to invest around 2 trillion won ($1.76 billion) -- equivalent to around 15 percent of the display-maker’s equity capital -- to produce around 15,000 plastic OLED sheets per month in its Paju plant. LG Display CEO Han Sang-beom speak

July 27, 2016

Naver to spin off mobile video messaging app Snow

South Korean Internet giant Naver said Wednesday that it will spin off its mobile video messaging app Snow as an independent company next month, encouraged by the app’s surging popularity across Asia.Camp Mobile, Naver’s mobile business unit, plans to separate out Snow as an independent company, to be named Snow Corp., on Aug. 1 with aims to nurture the app’s future growth with more efficiency and responsibility, according to Naver.Snow, a video and photo-sharing mobile messenger developed by Na

July 27, 2016

Samsung narrows profit margin gap with Apple

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics has narrowed its operating profit margin gap with archrival Apple, with the figure reducing to the lowest-ever 7.62 percent in the second quarter. This is the first time that the gap has narrowed to a single-digit percentage point between the world’s top two smartphone-makers. Koh Dong-jin, chief of Samsung Electronics‘ mobile business unit, holding Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge phones. Samsung ElectronicsAccording to its earnings guidance, Samsung posted 8.1 trillion

July 27, 2016

Samsung, SK hynix to spend more on chips for self-driving cars

[THE INVESTOR] Korean chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are pouring more resources into producing chips for self-driving cars amid their slowing sales in key sectors such as PCs. SK hynix, the second-largest memory chipmaker next to Samsung, said on July 26 that its car business now makes more than 10 percent of DRAM sales. DRAM chips are used for temporary data storage. The company added the figure for NAND chips, used for long-term data storage on smartphones and computers, is lower

July 27, 2016

Race to lead OLED market heats up

[THE INVESTOR] All eyes are now on who will take the reins in the upcoming era of organic light-emitting diode, which is expected to bring a generational change to mobile devices and the whole IT sector. The smartphone OLED realm has been a stronghold of Samsung Display whose market share reached 97.7 percent in the Jan-March period, according to market research firm IHS.Among the runner-ups in the segment are LG display of South Korea and AUO of Taiwan whose market share stood at 0.9 percent an

July 27, 2016

LG Display’s Q2 operating profit down 91%

[THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s display maker LG Display saw its operating profit drop 91 percent on-year in the April-June period, due largely to fierce competition in the global display market. The Seoul-headquartered company posted operating profit of 4.4 billion won (US$3.88 million) while its revenue came in at 585 billion won, down 13 percent compared to the same period in 2015.The TV and smartphone displays together account for more than half of the quarterly revenue -- 39 percent and 27 per

July 27, 2016

LG Display bets big on OLED to take on Samsung

[THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s display manufacturer LG Display announced on July 27 that it would invest around 2 trillion won (US$1.80 billion) to build manufacturing facilities for plastic organic light-emitting diode displays, a type of flexible display mostly used for mobile devices like smartphones. The company will add the new facilities with the monthly production capacity of 15,000 sheets of the sixth-generation plastic OLED -- measured 1,500 millimeters by 1,859 millimeters -- at the firm

July 27, 2016

LG Display to spend $1.75 bln on OLED display facility

LG Display Co. on Wednesday said it will spend 1.99 trillion won ($1.75 billion) to build a new production line for small to medium-sized organic light-emitting diodes used for smartphones and smartwatches. The new production line in South Korea will have a capacity of 15,000 sheets of the new OLED per month, LG Display said in a statement.LG Display said it will complete building the new facility by 2018, which will allow the company to produce a total of 30,000 sixth-generation OLED panels, th

July 27, 2016

Korean women 20 cm taller than century ago

The average height of Korean women is now 20 centimeters taller than 100 years ago, according to a study published by Imperial College, London, on Monday. Korean women and Iranian men showed the highest growth in average height among 200 nationalities, between 1914 and 2014, said the paper by Elio Riboli and James Bentham. (YouTube capture)A century ago, South Korean women had an average height of 1.42 m, but their average height is now 1.62 m.　North Korean women’s average height was 1.49 m in 1

July 26, 2016