Expectations were high for Genesis’ second compact luxury sports utility GV70. When the car was unveiled online in early December, the website temporarily went down as consumers flocked to check out the mid-sized successor to the brand’s first SUV, GV80, launched here in January to rave reviews and strong sales. It turned out Hyundai Motor, the Korean carmaker behind the Genesis brand, has done quite well in meeting those expectations. The GV70 offers a fine driving experience an

Mobility Dec. 23, 2020

Sales of Bibigo frozen dumplings have exceeded 1 trillion won this year, the company behind the brand said Tuesday. Bibigo owner CJ CheilJedang said sales of Bibigo dumplings stood at 1.03 trillion won ($930 million) in 2020, with 65 percent of the revenue coming from overseas. Bibigo’s sales of dumplings have shown steady growth in Korea and in other countries, and this year’s sales were double from that of 2017, when the combined sales in domestic and overseas markets was 506 b

Consumer Dec. 22, 2020

Cash-strapped SsangYong Motor on Monday filed for court receivership, after failing to pay back about 165 billion won ($149.5 million) worth of debts to its creditor banks. In a statement, the automaker said its executive board has made the decision to apply for corporate rehabilitation and related documents were submitted to the Seoul Bankruptcy Court in the afternoon. “We are truly sorry to worry all interested parties, financial institutes and employees at this time when the world

Mobility Dec. 21, 2020

JTI Korea has made donations to Community Chest of Korea to provide smart devices to support education of the socially vulnerable, the company said Monday. The tobacco company said the fund will be delivered to Work Together Foundation to buy smart devices for education, as schools are running online classes in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We are making the donations to help students who are facing difficulties in taking classes online (due to lack of devices) and to improve th

Industry Dec. 21, 2020

Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering said Monday it had clinched a deal worth 582 billion won ($528 million) for seven vessels with European shipping companies. The Korean shipbuilder said it has signed the contract to build four 13,200-twenty-foot-equivalent-unit container vessels, two 40,000-square-meter liquefied petroleum gas carriers and one product carrier, for the companies in Europe, unidentified. The four container vessels, which are 335 meters in length, 51 meters in widt

Industry Dec. 21, 2020

No one wants to get sick from eating food gone bad. So it happens to be a common experience for Koreans to sniff and check the color of food to see if it is still edible, and to discard it when they find out a couple of days have passed from the “sell-by” date on the package. But just as the term indicates, it is not the deadline for the product’s consumption. It is the date by which the product must be sold. This confusion over the date labeling system is costing the soc

Industry Dec. 19, 2020

Hyundai Motor Group said Friday it has developed a Korean-English translation app to support smooth communication among its employees in local and overseas offices. Dubbed the H-Translator, the app is based on artificial neural network (ANN) algorithm and is specialized in the automobile industry, the South Korean automaker said. Hyundai explained that it has come to develop the translator to support timely communication and strengthen work efficiency, as the company has been actively recrui

Mobility Dec. 18, 2020

Ikea Korea’s labor union plans to launch a three-day strike next week, accusing the Swedish furniture brand of discriminatory treatment toward local staff. About 800 of the workers at the company’s outlets in Gwangmyeong, Goyang and Yongin in Gyeonggi Province and its service call centers will join the walkout from Dec. 24-27, said the union affiliated with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions on Thursday. That constitutes one-third of Ikea Korea’s 2,500 employees. &

Consumer Dec. 17, 2020

CJ Group's core units named new CEOs on Monday. As part of a group-wide C-level reshuffle announced Friday, new chief executives began their terms at CJ Cheiljedang, CJ Logistics and CJ ENM, the South Korean retail and entertainment giant said. Choi Eun-seok assumed the top job at CJ Cheiljedang, replacing Kang Sin-ho, who moved to CJ Logistics as CEO. Choi, 53, was formerly the head of CJ Corp.’s management strategy office. Kang Ho-seong, formerly the head of management support at C

Industry Dec. 14, 2020

South Korean police are investigating a Tesla crash that killed one person and injured two others last week, to see if defects in the vehicle could have played a role. The Yongsan Police Station said Sunday that the vehicle has been delivered to the National Forensic Service for a forensic investigation, after the Seoul Western District Court issued a search and seizure warrant Friday. The vehicle, a Tesla Model X produced this year, caught fire after crashing into a wall late Wednesday as i

Mobility Dec. 13, 2020

Hyundai Motor Group is taking the first major step toward transforming into a smart mobility solution provider, acquiring the world’s leading robotics firm, Boston Dynamics. The Korean conglomerate announced late Friday its agreement with SoftBank to acquire a controlling interest in the mobile robot firm, valued at $1.1 billion. Under the agreement, three Hyundai Motor companies and group Chairman Chung Euisun will together hold 80 percent of the firm’s shares, while SoftBank r

Mobility Dec. 13, 2020

Genesis, a luxury automobile brand from Hyundai Motor Group, unveiled its second sport utility vehicle online Tuesday, the GV70. The new vehicle will be introduced in South Korea as early as January. Genesis aims to lead the luxury SUV market through the GV70. “The domestic luxury SUV market was expected to be somewhat slower than the growth of luxury SUVs abroad due to its high price. But, GV80 is writing a new history and GV70 will continue to lead the sales of mid-sized luxury SUVs

Mobility Dec. 8, 2020

Popeyes, a US-based fried chicken franchise, said Friday that it would cease to operate in South Korea, 26 years after it opened its first outlet in 1994. The Korean operator, TS Food & System, said its franchise contract with the US headquarters is set to end at the end of this year. Popeyes, which at one time owned over 200 outlets here, has been struggling against poor sales. With the COVID-19 pandemic the business faced even more difficulties, and the number of stores was reduced t

Consumer Dec. 4, 2020

Renault Samsung Motors said Thursday its sports utility vehicle QM6 has climbed the sales chart to lead company’s performance this year. According to the automaker, the QM6 model sold 4,323 units in October, up 35.6 percent from the month before. The gasoline model, QM6 GDe, which has topped the mid-sized SUV market in South Korea for the second half of this year, takes 50.7 percent of the total sales of QM6, with 2,191 units, the automaker said. The rest is taken by QM6 LPe, which is

Mobility Dec. 3, 2020

Homeplus said Wednesday the overall sales of IT home appliances jumped 46 percent from March to November, compared to the same time last year, with increased remote working and homeschooling amid the pandemic. Sales of tablet PCs in the period saw an explosive growth of 426 percent, and laptops and printers also witnessed a sales increase of 25 percent respectively, the retailer said. Large home appliances, such as televisions and refrigerators, were also popular this year, with the sales ri

Consumer Dec. 2, 2020