Carmakers' Dec. sales dip 5% amid pandemic

South Korean carmakers' sales fell 5 percent last month from a year earlier as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to weigh on demand, industry data showed Monday. The five carmakers in South Korea -- Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors, GM Korea, Renault Samsung Motors and SsangYong Motor -- sold a combined 658,550 vehicles in December, down from 694,988 units a year ago, according to data from the companies. Their domestic sales fell 8 percent to 133,061 units in December from 144,839 a year ago, while ov

Jan. 4, 2021

Samsung to disclose Galaxy S21 series next week

Samsung Electronics will introduce its new flagship smartphone Galaxy S21 on Jan. 15, the company announced Monday. The first launch from the global smartphone giant this year, the Galaxy S21 series comprises a 6.2-inch S21, 6.7-inch S21 Plus and 6.8-inch S21 Ultra, which have been drawing expectations for their upgraded specs and designs. The models to be launched in North America are expected to feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 processor, while those for Europe and South Korea will

Jan. 4, 2021

Hyundai Motor may buy EV batteries from Samsung SDI for 1st time

Hyundai Motor said Monday it has selected Samsung SDI as one of the final candidates to supply batteries for its electric vehicles to be rolled out in 2023. South Korea’s largest automaker is currently shopping for the third batch of batteries for its EVs to be assembled using its platform E-GMP. Designed by Hyundai Motor, E-GMP is a platform dedicated to EVs that allows the carmaker to load batteries under the car’s floor instead of engine bay. If selected, Samsung SDI, toge

Jan. 4, 2021

Kowepo to inject W250b to build 3 fuel cell power plants

Korea Western Power said Monday it will invest 250 billion won ($231.3 million) to construct three fuel cell-based electricity generation facilities. In a recent board meeting, Kowepo, which aims to increase its renewable power generation capacity to 6.1 gigawatts by 2030 from 490 megawatts as of 2019, decided to establish three fuel cell power plants, in Iksan, North Jeolla Province; Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province; and Goryeong, North Gyeongsang Province. The 15-megawatt plant in Iksan will

Jan. 4, 2021

Renault Samsung's Dec. sales nearly halve amid pandemic

Renault Samsung Motors Corp. said Monday that its auto sales tumbled 46.9 percent last month from a year earlier as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to weigh on demand for its models. The South Korean unit of Renault SA sold 9,016 vehicles in December, down from 16,965 units a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Domestic sales decreased 19.7 percent on-year to 8,010 units last month, while exports tumbled 85.6 percent to 1,006 units over the cited period, the firm said. For the whol

Jan. 4, 2021

HHIH likely to complete acquisition of DSME within H1: HHIH chairman

Global shipbuilding behemoth Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings Co. (HHIH) will be able to complete the acquisition of smaller local rival Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) within the first half of this year, the company's chairman said Monday. "The review of the business combination (between HHIH and DSME) has been a little delayed but is expected to be completed within the first half of this year," HHIH's chairman Kwon Oh-gap said in his New Year's message. The

Jan. 4, 2021

Market leaders call for innovation, risk management amid lingering uncertainty

Leaders of state-run investment institutes and private brokerage firms here said they would accelerate digital transformation of the market and beef up their risk management capabilities in the face of lingering pandemic uncertainties. The Korea Exchange, the nation‘s sole securities exchange operator, said it would seek ways to expand the market entries of promising companies and secure market fairness by strengthening regulations on short selling. “The KRX will support innovative

Jan. 4, 2021

Korea begins approval process for AstraZeneca vaccine

AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine (AZD1222) will be reviewed for potential approval in South Korea within the next 40 days, Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced Monday. According to the Drug Ministry, AstraZeneca Korea has submitted applications for approval for its vaccine to be manufactured locally under a contract with SK Bioscience and for more of the vaccine to be shipped from manufacturers in Italy, the US and the UK. AstraZeneca is required to submit further doc

Jan. 4, 2021

Mobile carriers tipped to log robust Q4 results on 5G growth

South Korean mobile carriers are expected to report improved earnings for the final quarter of 2020 on the back of steady growth in 5G users, analysts said Monday. The combined operating profits of the country's three major telecom operators -- SK Telecom Co., KT Corp. and LG Uplus Corp. -- are estimated at 670.9 billion won ($620.3 million) in the Oct.-Dec. period last year, compared with 497.9 billion won the previous year, according to a poll by Yonhap Infomax, the financial arm of Yonhap Ne

Jan. 4, 2021

Banking groups face challenge as pandemic-led digitalization accelerates

      The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the digitalization of the financial industry, pushing local banking groups to cater services to require less contact. The heated competition to gain a digital foothold in the industry pose as a key task for the firms this year, experts and head of the groups said Monday. “Local banks must bolster their risk management, while seeking for fresh revenue sources in the era of near-zero interest rates and improve the com

Jan. 4, 2021

S. Korean builder sentiment falls in Dec. amid coronavirus resurgence

South Korean builders' business sentiment edged down in December from a month earlier due to a resurgence of coronavirus infections, a poll showed Monday. The construction business survey index (CBSI) came to 84.6 last month, down 0.7 point from the previous month, according to the survey by the Construction and Economy Research Institute of Korea. The December figure marks the first on-month drop in four months. The index rose for three months from September to November. A reading below 100

Jan. 4, 2021

S. Korea targets 3.2% growth, housing market stabilization in 2021

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki on Monday reiterated the government’s commitment for economic growth of 3.2 percent this year and stressed its drive to stabilize soaring housing price at the same time. Urging ministry officials to prepare for structural changes in the post COVID-19 era, Hong vowed to make all-out efforts to achieve the target of a 3.2 percent economic growth and to create 150,000 additional jobs this year. “We must promote domestic consumption as much as possible un

Jan. 4, 2021

Daewoong to initiate phase 3 trial of camostat in combination with remdesivir

Daewoong Pharmaceutical’s pancreatitis treatment Foistar (DWJ1248) is to enter a new phase 3 clinical trial in combination with Gilead Science’s remdesivir, the company said in a regulatory filing Monday. Foistar, which is administered orally in tablet form, uses camostat as its active ingredient and is hoped to reduce the viral load of COVID-19 in an infected person’s body. In the beginning of the race for COVID-19 treatments, scientists believed that repurposing drugs such

Jan. 4, 2021

GS chairman vows focus on digital competency in New Year’s address

GS Group will focus on digital competency and environmentally-friendly management to discover new business projects, the chairman of the group Huh Tae-soo said on Monday. In a livestreamed New Year’s address from the company‘s headquarters in Seoul, Huh said his company will push for “new businesses in various fields” and urged employees to adjust their ways of working to adapt to change. While last year was a “period of change” marred by the uncertainty sur

Jan. 4, 2021

Wine imports hit record high as home drinking catches on

Wine imports soared to a record high in Korea last year, apparently helped by more people drinking at home amid the pandemic, new government data revealed Monday. South Korea imported 38,969 tons of wine worth $239.2 million from January to November in 2020, according to data from the Korea Customs Service. Though data on the month of December has yet to be added, last year’s figure has already beat the previous record of $204 million for 2019. Wine imports have grown over the years and

Jan. 4, 2021

Daewoo E&C wins W2.9tr port deal in Iraq

Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co., a major South Korean builder, said Monday it has signed a 2.9 trillion-won ($2.7 billion) deal with the Iraqi government to build port facilities. Daewoo E&C has obtained the deal from the state-run General Company for Ports of Iraq (GCPI) to build a tunnel, a container terminal and roads to the Al Faw port in Basra, the company said in a statement. "The company participated in the port construction project from 2013. In the previous deal, we

Jan. 4, 2021

NCSoft's Lineage 2M to land in Japan, Taiwan in Q1

Lineage 2M, a mobile massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), will land in Japan and Taiwan during the first quarter of this year, South Korean online game maker NCSoft said Monday. The mobile version of the mega-hit game Lineage 2 will be simultaneously available on Google's Android and Apple's iOS devices in the two Asian countries, the company said. Lineage 2M, which integrates NCSoft's technology and expertise built over the past 20 years, features full 3D graphics and 4K U

Jan. 4, 2021

S. Korea's FTA networks set to further expand in 2021

South Korea's free trade deals may further increase this year in line with its efforts to revitalize its ailing pandemic-hit exports and cope with the growing protectionism around the globe, a trade promotion agency said Monday. South Korea and Britain implemented their bilateral FTA on Friday to maintain their trades regardless of London's departure from the European Union. Following the move, the country now has 17 free trade pacts that cover 56 countries around the globe. The free trade pa

Jan. 4, 2021

More efforts to be focused on stabilizing housing market this year: finance minister

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Monday that the government will spare no efforts this year to stabilize housing prices that have been rising despite a series of measures to cool down the property market. The minister also said that policy efforts will be put into place to pull off a "fast and strong" economic recovery this year as Asia's fourth-largest economy faces growing uncertainties such as a resurgence in new coronavirus cases. "From the beginning of the new year, we wil

Jan. 4, 2021

Seoul stocks open higher on 1st day of 2021

South Korean stocks kicked off higher Monday, the first session of the new year, led by strong chip and auto gains. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 4.48 points, or 0.16 percent, to 2,877.95 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Market bellwether Samsung Electronics lost 0.37 percent, but No. 2 chipmaker SK hynix advanced 2.95 percent. Top automaker Hyundai Motor soared 6.77 percent, and its auto part making affiliate Hyundai Mobis spiked 12.13 percent. Leading chem

Jan. 4, 2021