Online shopping rises 16.8% in Aug. amid pandemic

Online shopping in South Korea grew 16.8 percent from a year earlier on solid demand for food delivery services and foodstuffs amid the protracted pandemic, data showed Tuesday. The value of online shopping transactions stood at 15.8 trillion won ($13.3 billion) in August, compared with 13.5 trillion won the previous year, according to the data from Statistics Korea. The August reading fell from a record high of 16.2 trillion won in July, but the value of online shopping reached more than 15 tri

Oct. 5, 2021

Hanjin Heavy bags W311b order for 4 container carriers

South Korean shipbuilder Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction Co. said Tuesday that it has obtained a 310.5 billion won ($261.4 million) order to build four container carriers. Under the deal with a European shipper, Hanjin Heavy will deliver the vessels by November, 2023, the company said in a regulatory filing. In April, creditors of Hanjin Heavy, led by the state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB), signed a deal with a consortium led by local builder Dongbu Corp. to sell it a 66.85 percen

Oct. 5, 2021

Daewoo Shipbuilding gets approval for design of cyber safety solutions for ship

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) said Tuesday that it has won approval for the design of its cyber safety solutions for ships from ABS, a US ship quality assurance and risk management company. The solutions, named DSME Smartship Solutions (DS4), will be used to protect the data and software of ships from outside hacking, the shipbuilder said in an emailed statement. The PDA (product design assessment) approval for the DS4 means the DS4 is designed under the standard for th

Oct. 5, 2021

Apple Watch 7 to be launched in S. Korea next week

Apple Inc.'s new smartwatch will be launched in South Korea next week, the US tech titan said Tuesday, as it eyes to beef up its presence on the home turf of its archrival Samsung Electronics Co. Apple Watch Series 7 will be available here from Oct. 15, with preorders starting from Friday, according to the company. Its starting price has been set at 499,000 won ($420). Apple's latest smartwatch features a nearly 20-percent-larger screen and 40-percent-thinner bezel than its predecessor at 1.7 mi

Oct. 5, 2021

LG Electronics' innovation group expanded for future growth

LG Electronics Inc. said Tuesday it has expanded its technology discussion group as the company tries to better explore its future growth engines. LG Electronics said its Innovation Council now involves other LG Group affiliates, including South Korea's No. 1 chemical company LG Chem Ltd., telecommunications giant LG Uplus Corp. and IT service arm LG CNS Co. The Innovation Council, a networking group with industry experts, was launched by LG Electronics in July 2020 to seek new business opportun

Oct. 5, 2021

Samsung Display continues to dominate smartphone panel market in H1: report

Samsung Display Co., a major display panel maker in South Korea, dominated the global smartphone panel market in the first half of the year, a report showed Tuesday, though its market share declined slightly from a year earlier. Samsung Display, an affiliate of top smartphone maker Samsung Electronics Co., grabbed a 48 percent revenue share in the global smartphone display panel market in the first six months of 2021, down from a 50 percent share a year earlier, according to a report from market

Oct. 5, 2021

Regulator to complete review of Korean Air's Asiana takeover deal this year

South Korea's antitrust regulator said Tuesday it plans to complete its review within this year of a deal by Korean Air Lines Co., the country's biggest carrier, to buy the debt-ridden Asiana Airlines Inc. In a report to the National Assembly, the Korean Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said it plans to speed up the review in consideration of the value that the deal has for the country's economy. In November 2020, Korean Air said it will acquire its smaller rival Asiana Airlines in a deal valued at

Oct. 5, 2021

Samsung Electronics, union to have 1st wage talks

Samsung Electronics Co. and its union will have their first wage talks Tuesday as the tech giant is moving to create a healthy labor-management culture following its leader's commitment to scrap the conglomerate's "no labor union" policy. Representatives from Samsung's management and the union will hold the first round of wage talks at its plant in Yongin, 49 kilometers south of Seoul. It will be the first wage negotiations since Lee Jae-yong, the leader of Samsung Group, in May 2020 v

Oct. 5, 2021

Seoul stocks open lower on US stock losses

South Korean stocks opened lower Tuesday, as investor sentiment was hurt by overnight losses on Wall Street. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) slumped 29.05 points, or 0.96 percent, to 2,990.13 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. Seoul stocks got off to a weak start, falling below the 3,000-point level for the first time in about six months. The Korean stock market closed Monday due to an extended holiday tied to the Oct. 3 National Foundation Day. An impasse over th

Oct. 5, 2021

Top 4 take up bulk of major conglomerates' 2020 earnings

Earnings by South Korea's top four conglomerates accounted for more than 80 percent of the 30 leading business groups' total net profit in 2020 in a show of their dominance in Asia's fourth-largest economy, government data showed Tuesday. Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK and LG groups posted a combined net income of 37.6 trillion won ($31.7 billion) last year, up 2.2 trillion won from a year earlier, according to the data that the Fair Trade Commission presented for an annual parliamentary audition. T

Oct. 5, 2021

Retailer confidence worsens for Q4 amid coronavirus resurgence

South Korean retailers' confidence fell below par for the fourth quarter of the year due to strict social distancing measures to stem the spread of the new coronavirus, a poll showed Tuesday. The Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry said its retail business survey index (RBSI) came to 99 for the October-December period, down 7 points from three months earlier. It marks the first on-quarter drop in three quarters. The RBSI stood at 106 in the third quarter and 103 in the first quarter. The fig

Oct. 5, 2021

IATA sees sharp fall in airline losses in 2022

Global airlines on Monday projected a sharp reduction in industry losses next year as a multispeed recovery from the coronavirus crisis gets under way, but revised up the financial toll inflicted by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. The International Air Transport Association, the industry's main trade body, predicted that net losses at airlines would narrow to $11.6 billion in 2022 from $51.8 billion this year.The losses for 2021 were revised up from $47.7 billion estimated in April. IATA also r

Oct. 4, 2021

[Feature] AI job interviews are booming, but doubts linger

Interviews are a crucial part of the job search process. But what if you were to be evaluated by a machine, rather than human interviewers? As digital transformation changes the way businesses get done, accelerated by the contactless trend of the pandemic era, artificial intelligence programs that screen or evaluate job candidates are booming in Korea, as well as elsewhere in the world. A typical AI-operated interview usually requires candidates to sit through a set of online games and video

Oct. 4, 2021

IPOs highlight imminent successions at Korean chaebol

South Korean business magnates are gearing up for initial public offerings of conglomerates’ affiliates, in an apparent bid to allow their siblings to cash in on their stock holdings from the proposed exit under the respective business succession plans. Market watchers perceive the moves as the chance to give cash-hungry siblings options to solidify legitimate control over the family-owned conglomerates here, which include buying shares in the group’s key affiliate that stands on t

Oct. 4, 2021

Convenience stores continue to see higher sales in pandemic

Sales at local convenience stores continued to increase despite economic setbacks from COVID-19, government data showed Monday. The convenience store sector was the only retail sector that continued to post growth during the first eight months of this year, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy added. During the January-August period, sales at convenience stores increased by 6 percent on average from a year earlier. The trend was especially strong in March and April, when the respective

Oct. 4, 2021

Top food delivery app Baemin is the least senior-friendly: report

The country‘s largest food delivery firm Baedal Minjok has been selected as the least accessible and friendly application for older people and those with disabilities, a local lawmaker said Monday. According to lawmaker Yang Jeong-suk, who quoted the Ministry of Science and ICT’s report, Baemin ranked at the bottom among the top 300 most-downloaded apps that the ministry reviewed. The 300 apps were evenly split -- with a half available for Apple and the other half for Android. The

Oct. 4, 2021

Starbucks workers plan rally over excessive workload

Baristas and employees of Starbucks Korea are fuming over excessive workload, after a recent marketing event drew customers lining up for hours. 　  Saying the company has no consideration for the working conditions of its already-overworked staff, the employees said they may stage their first-ever collection action this week.   A staffer at the US-based coffee chain, who requested anonymity, confirmed to The Korea Herald on Monday that workers are planning a rally this week. The

Oct. 4, 2021

Imported luxury bag sales surpass W174b despite pandemic

Sales of imported high-end bags in South Korea soared last year despite a slump in private consumption induced by COVID-19 pandemic woes, data showed Monday. The estimated total of imported luxury bag sales, calculated on the basis of special consumption taxes and surtaxes imposed on shoppers, came in at 174.1 billion won ($147.3 million) in 2020, said Rep. Suh Byung-soo of the main opposition People Power Party, quoting data compiled by the National Tax Service and Korea Customs Service. Last

Oct. 4, 2021

Multitenant assets to improve Korean property investors’ resilience: analysis

South Korean investors’ focus could be on multitenant commercial properties as they have greater room for improvement than single-tenant properties under their traditional low-risk strategy amid prospects for post-pandemic uncertainties, a research paper showed Monday. Such assets can help Korean outbound investors seek extra income from investment and stay resilient from economic uncertainties that arise from a projected interest rate hike across the world in the wake of the pandemic re

Oct. 4, 2021

[Law Talk] Amendment of the E-Commerce Act in 20 years redresses unfair practices on online platforms

Users of delivery apps, online secondhand marketplaces and social network services have greatly increased due to the continued pandemic. The aggregate turnover of food delivery service providers in South Korea has increased by 78.6 percent in 2020 compared to the previous year, and monthly active users of Karrot -- an online secondhand marketplace -- increased threefold every year over the past three years. As such, the online market is rapidly growing and transactions are transforming to center

Oct. 4, 2021