Samsung SDI, LG Chem batteries excluded for EV subsidies in China

[THE INVESTOR] The Chinese government has decided to suspend consumer subsidies for electric vehicles using batteries produced by two Korean companies Samsung SDI and LG Chem. 　The decision is expected to become a huge blow to the Korean duo that has poured considerable resources into the Chinese market in recent years, including building new battery-making plants.  According to news reports on June 20, the Chinese government announced a total of 31 companies subject to EV subsidies but Samsung

June 20, 2016

Samsung Electronics to hold global executive meeting this week

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics’ annual global strategy meeting will start on June 21, with almost 500 executives in Korea and from overseas operations flocking to its headquarters. The company’s parts, appliance and mobile business divisions will hold separate meetings presided by three CEOs -- Kwon Oh-hyun, Yoon Boo-geun and Shin Jong-kyun.  Samsung’s Suwon digital city complex in Gyeonggi Province.About 80 meeting sessions are scheduled to be held until next week. Considering previous year

June 20, 2016

IoT will drive growth of chip market: Samsung

[THE INVESTOR] A top Samsung Electronics executive said that the Internet of Things market will serve as a driving force behind the company’s semiconductor business.Participating in an investor relations conference held at Conrad Seoul on June 20, Samsung’s chief technology officer So byung-se said “IoT will become a locomotive of the semiconductor business.”“Developers should tailor system-on-chips made by other chipmakers on their own, but the ARTIK platform gets rid of such nuisance,” the CTO

June 20, 2016

Chip prices projected to rebound

[THE INVESTOR] Speculation has grown over the possible rally of semiconductor prices amid the industry’s efforts to control the supply and releases of new smartphones, industry sources said Monday. According to global online semiconductor market DRAMeXchange, the spot price of DDR3 began its rebound early this month. The prices of DDR3 and DDR4 have been on the decline since late 2014, with each hitting record lows last month, at $1.25 and $1.31, respectively. The fall of DRAM price has, consequ

June 20, 2016

Pantech to release new smartphone

[THE INVESTOR] Smartphone-maker Pantech will release a new model on June 30, its first after being acquired by a consortium led by telecom equipment firm Solid in December last year.The firm, once the third largest in Korea after Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, was on the brink of bankruptcy due to decreasing sales and financial constraints in 2015.After it was acquired by the consortium, the firm has focused on rolling out connected devices for automotive, defense and home automation in

June 20, 2016

Digital signage industry to create 700,000 jobs by 2020: report

[THE INVESTOR] Korea Economic Research Institute, a state-run research organization, anticipated that the digital signage market would create around 70,000 jobs by the year 2020. The digital signage is a large-size digital board, often made of organic light-emitting diode or liquid-crystal displays. The boards are used to display images, videos and textual information. The signage segment will spark 10.1-trillion-won ($8.7 billion) worth of production and create 3.2 trillion won in added value,

June 20, 2016

Nzin renamed as KakaoGames to enter US, Europe markets

[THE INVESTOR] Kakao’s gaming affiliate Nzin will change its name to KakaoGames next month aiming to improve integration of its ever-evolving business portfolio. The decision will be voted during a shareholders meeting planned on June 30.“The renaming aims to strengthen the company’s brand value as a multi-platform gaming company and elevate the sense of unity as a Kakao family,” said a Kakao official. The official said, among others, the renaming will be helpful for the company to seek business

June 20, 2016

Regulator mulls smartphone users TV license fee

[THE INVESTOR] Korea’s media regulator is planning to set up an independent organization to improve the TV license fee system of KBS, a state-run broadcaster, which will likely include a measure to charge smartphone users.The Korea Communications Commission will form an independent group dedicated to assessing the financial structure of state-run broadcaster KBS and improving the broadcasting firm’s TV license fee system, according to a briefing reported to the National Assembly on June 20.  The

June 20, 2016

Korea, Japan, China sign MOU on drone cooperation

[THE INVESTOR] Industrial organizations of South Korea, Japan and China on June 19 agreed to join hands to nurture the nascent drone industry together. The Korea Industrial Technology Association said it has signed a memorandum of understanding with its Chinese and Japanese counterparts on the sidelines of the Shenzhen International UAV (unnamed aerial vehicle) Expo. Korea Drone Industry Promotion Association chairman Lee Hyo-koo (left) and his Chinese and Japanese counterparts pose at an MOU ev

June 20, 2016

Samsung sees no serious impact from chip plant suspension in China

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics downplayed any serious impact from the suspension of its chip-making plant in China that was caused by an explosion at a nearby power substation over the weekend. The Korean tech giant on June 20 said that following the explosion some production lines stopped working due to low voltage power and they are working on the resumption in the next three days.  Samsung’s first semiconductor fabrication factory in Xian, China“Up to thousands of wafers should be dispose

June 20, 2016

[INTERVIEW] Samsung's ever-evolving marketing innovations

[THE INVESTOR] Early this year, Samsung Electronics’ marketing team was preparing for the firm’s most important launch -- the Galaxy S7. It was a crucial juncture for the Korean tech giant. Its profits were hit hard by lukewarm sales of the phone’s predecessor, while rivals were fast gobbling up market share of the world’s largest smartphone-maker. But the team didn’t seek a safe option and decided to take risks. They launched the model in Barcelona at the industry’s first virtual reality unveil

June 20, 2016

LG to recall air purifier filters containing toxic chemicals

[THE INVESTOR] LG Electronics said Monday that it would launch a recall campaign for air purifier filters after some products were found to contain Octylisothiazolinone (OIT), a chemical substance toxic to humans. “A small amount of OIT was found in 3M’s filters for fine particles, which were fitted in LG’s air purifiers and air conditioners produced after 2012,” the company said. LG Electronics’ air purifiers.Right after the toxic filter issue surfaced recently, LG has requested air filter make

June 20, 2016

Kakao Pay users exceed 10m mark

[THE INVESTOR] Kakao’s mobile payments service Kakao Pay has logged more than 10 million users on its home turf since its September 2014 launch, the Internet giant said on June 20. 　Running on the immensely popular KakaoTalk mobile messenger, the service has become the first financial technology or fintech service to hit the 10-million milestone in terms of users. 　Currently, there are more than 50 million KakaoTalk users around the world. 　The company attributed the service’s wider adoption amo

June 20, 2016

Samsung Display to pour W10tr into OLED production plant: report

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Display will reportedly beef up its production capacity for organic light-emitting diode displays at its manufacturing complex in Asan City, South Chungcheong Province, in a bid to maintain the lead in the growing market for display technology.The Nikkei, a Japanese financial newspaper, reported last week that the company will spend around 10 trillion won (US$8.5 billion) in newly building production facilities for display panels and updating the existing ones this year. A

June 20, 2016

Apple under antitrust scrutiny

[THE INVESTOR] The Korea Fair Trade Commission is looking into Apple on suspicion of imposing part of advertising costs on local mobile carriers.According to industry sources, the FTC suspects that local carriers were made to cover part of the advertising costs for the US company’s new products. Apple is also said to be suspected of making carriers cover a part of the costs arising from customer services. The FTC, however, declined to confirm the reports.By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)

June 20, 2016

Samsung’s Joyent buy not enough to take on AWS: analyst

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics is expected to get a big boost with its recent acquisition of US-based cloud service start-up Joyent but it would be still not enough to compete head-on with the market No. 1 Amazon Web Service, or AWS.Samsung did not reveal the acquisition price for the deal that was announced on June 16. Global Innovation Center, its Silicon Valley start-up accelerator, is said to have led the whole process. After the acquisition, Joyent will be run as a separate entity under

June 20, 2016

LG Display to collaborate with Chinese patent office

[THE INVESTOR] Display maker LG Display said June 17 that it held a meeting with top officials from the Patent Examination Cooperation Center, a patent office, in Jiangsu, China. At the meeting the company’s chief technology officer Kang In-byeong elaborated on the firm’s business strategies and technologies including organic light-emitting diodes. LG Display’s chief technology officer Kang In-byeong (right).CTO Kang and officials from the patent office vowed to make concerted efforts to bring i

June 17, 2016

[ANALYST REPORT] The global robot revolution is here, and growing

The past month has seen a spate of robotics M&A activity around the world. China tipped its hand to its RIoT ambitions with a USD5bn offer for Germany’s Kuka, one of the world’s leading robotics companies. Kuka has traditionally been a strong player in the industrial robot space but recently has been aggressively moving into the service robotics domain due to the expected massive growth of the segment.Toyota is also reported to be in talks with Google to acquire Boston Dynamics and Schaft—the wo

June 17, 2016