Samsung Galaxy Note 7 likely to have curved screen: report

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics’ new Note phablet, tentatively called “Galaxy Note 7,” is expected to have a curved screen, indicating the Korean tech giant’s commitment to a dual-edge curved display for its Galaxy smartphones. 　According to local daily Munwha Ilbo, Samsung is not considering launching a flat screen version of the Note phone.  The Galaxy Note 7 will be unveiled at an unpacked event held in New York in August. It will become the first Note phone with a curved screen. 　Citing i

June 21, 2016

Samsung to reduce investment for DRAM

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics has announced that it would shift its focus to NAND flash memory from DRAM as the global DRAM market is reeling from record low prices.“The tech giant told investors (at the firm’s investor relations session) that it would scale down the investment in its DRAM business compared to last year,” reported online news outlet the Financial News, quoting a market analyst who participated in the meeting as saying.The tech giant held IR sessions in New York City and Bos

June 21, 2016

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

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

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

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