Apple’s iPhone 7 and LG Electronics’ V20 have taken a sizable portion of the Korean smartphone market since their recent launches, which came on the heels of Samsung’s production halt of the Galaxy Note 7.The market is expected to see a continuous inflow of undecided customers as Samsung Electronics plans to urge remaining Note 7 owners to change their fire-prone devices.Since the iPhone 7 was first rolled out on Friday, around 62,000 consumers changed their telecom operators, according to the K

Technology Oct. 23, 2016

South Korean tech company Suncore said Thursday that Prince Khaled bin al-Waleed, the son of Saudi Arabian business magnate al-Waleed bin Talal, has become the largest shareholder of the company in its regulatory filing.Suncore said Prince al-Waleed has invested around $10 million in the company to take a 5.6 percent stake. The prince’s father, Saudi Arabian business tycoon al-Waleed bin Talal, is a member of the Saudi royal family, Citigroup’s largest individual shareholder and chief of Saudi c

Technology Oct. 20, 2016

Information Technology solutions provider Samsung SDS launched a new mobile banking solution to target the global financial market, the company said Wednesday. The company launched the Mobile Voice Recording Solution, or MVRS, which enables mobile devices to automatically record and manage phone calls between customers and call-center employees as well as customers and financial company employees.(Samsung SDS)The new solution is expected to make it more convenient for customers, who have to make

Technology Oct. 19, 2016

Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Mong-koo said Tuesday that he would seek a fresh start in China, the world’s largest and fast-growing car market, moving away from market concerns over the fate of South Korea’s largest carmaker.At a ceremony to mark the completion of the firm’s new plant in Cangzhou, the chairman said that Hyundai would take this as an opportunity to jump forward, stressing that the factory is built to exclusively target Chinese consumers with high-quality vehicles.Hyundai Mot

Mobility Oct. 18, 2016

Samsung Electronics said Monday it had begun the mass production of 10-nanometer application processors for the first time in the global semiconductor industry, and would apply them into new mobile devices to be launched early next year.The South Korean tech giant said its 10-nanometer APs had 27 percent better performance, saved 40 percent more energy and increased the number of chips per wafer 30 percent compared to the 14-nanometer APs that made up the previous generation. Samsung will be unv

Technology Oct. 17, 2016

The fallout from the Galaxy Note 7 is estimated to cost Samsung Electronics more than 7 trillion won ($6.1 billion), according to the company and industry analysts Friday. The Korean tech giant announced Friday that the opportunity cost from the halt in production of the Note 7 is estimated to be a mid-4 trillion-won sum during the coming two quarters. It is a combined figure made up of a mid-3 trillion-won sum in the fourth quarter and 1 trillion won in the first quarter of next year, Samsung s

Technology Oct. 14, 2016

Lee Joo-hyun, 33, does not want to replace her Galaxy Note 7 with another smartphone although she is afraid of possible explosions. She said she does not want to give up the functions she has been enjoying with her Note 7.“I am satisfied with the upgraded S Pen stylus. I cannot find the same function even from other smartphones made by Samsung,” Lee said, who has only used smartphones under the Galaxy series for several years.The Galaxy fan said she wished she could continue using the smartphone

Technology Oct. 13, 2016

The owners of explosion-prone large smartphone Galaxy Note 7 are able to refund or exchange their device from Thursday until the end of this year, according to Samsung Electronics. The short-lived Galaxy Note 7, which first rolled out on Aug. 19 in the US and Korea, sold around 1.8 million units globally. Around 500,000 units were sold in Korea alongside 1 million units in the US, where refunds and exchanges began Tuesday. Samsung said Thursday owners of the Galaxy Note 7 would receive benefits

Technology Oct. 13, 2016

Speculations are high that Samsung Electronics may discard the Note brand, as the company’s brand reputation has suffered serious damage from the Galaxy Note 7 explosions and the consequent pullout.“Samsung is recommended to drop the Note brand as consumers may still find it dangerous even when the new Note 8 comes out,” Kim Duk-jin, the vice chief of private-run Korea-Insight Institute, told The Korea Herald. The tech giant Tuesday decided to discontinue the phablets upon repeated incidents of

Technology Oct. 12, 2016

Speculation persists over what caused the explosions of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 smartphones that led the tech giant to halt all production and sales of the device on Tuesday night.  A number of reported explosions of replacement Note 7 devices suggests the batteries may not have been the main cause, despite the tech giant’s initial claim the incidents were the fault of its supplier, Samsung SDI. When the explosion issue first began in September, Samsung Electronics said faulty batteries were the

Technology Oct. 11, 2016

SsangYong Motor signed an agreement with Chinese automaker Shaanxi Automobile Group to set up a joint venture for establishing a SsangYong production plant in China, the automaker said Tuesday. The joint venture will become the Korean automaker’s first overseas production base. “It is essential to have a local plant in China to increase our competitiveness in the rapidly growing Chinese car market and to increase our sales volume,” said SsangYong Motor chief Choi Johng-sik.The company said it wo

Mobility Oct. 11, 2016

Samsung Electronics has been plagued by a series of woes recently related to its fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 and patent battles with Apple.Samsung halted the production of its Galaxy Note 7 on Monday after a number of replacement phones caught fire  globally and the US major mobile carriers AT&T and T-Mobile stopped sales of the phones on the grounds of consumer safety.“The production halts include Samsung’s plants in Vietnam, which are in charge of global supplies. The measure was taken for the sa

Technology Oct. 10, 2016

It will be a long journey for Hyundai Motor to take a lead in hydrogen-powered vehicles due to a lack of infrastructure and progress by Japanese competitors, industry watchers said. Hyundai Motor appears to be betting on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for its next-generation of cars, believing it will ultimately replace electric cars. In 2013, Hyundai, for the first time in the world, mass-produced the Tucson ix FCEV, which runs up to 415 kilometers on a single charge, and plans to unveil the secon

Mobility Oct. 9, 2016

South Korea may be in a leadership position in the global market for 5G broadband, Nokia’s Asia Pacific and Japan head said last week.  Korea aims to be the first to unveil the next-generation network 5G -- which can deliver data 1,000 times faster than long-term evolution -- in time for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. The successful launch of the technology, being developed by local telecom operators in partnership with Samsung Electronics, Nokia, Ericsson and NEC, is critical for Korea i

Technology Oct. 9, 2016

As Samsung Electronics remained cautious over US hedge fund Elliott’s proposal on governance restructuring, stock prices of the tech giant and related affiliates surged Thursday.Earlier Wednesday, Elliott sent a letter to Samsung Electronics, noting that the “unnecessary complex” structure of the company was weighing on its stock prices and it is thus undervalued by as much as 70 percent.The activist investor asked Samsung Electronics to split into a holding company and list its operating compan

Technology Oct. 6, 2016