Further investments on the part of South Korean display panel manufacturers in large OLED panels for televisions, monitors and laptops will be unlikely for the rest of 2022, according to a panel expert on Thursday. Yi Choong-hoon, chief executive officer of display panel research firm UBI Research, cited a slow path to profitability in the cutting-edge panel businesses by Samsung Display and LG Display, despite growing market demand, in a seminar at Coex in Seoul on Thursday. For Samsung, a

Technology June 24, 2022

Tight collaboration of all parties concerned is key to a rocket launch, as a minor technical glitch could botch years of efforts. Behind Tuesday’s successful launch of South Korea’s first homegrown rocket Nuri were the joint efforts of over 300 companies at home. Korea Aerospace Industries, based in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province, was the effective leader of the pack. KAI has been in charge of the assembly of all rocket parts supplied since joining the Nuri project in 2014. K

Technology June 21, 2022

SK Chairman Chey Tae-won is to be awarded the French Legion of Honor, France‘s highest civilian order of merit, during his trip to Paris later this week, according to news reports Tuesday. Chey, who has spearheaded South Korean capital investment in France, was reportedly recognized for his contributions to French-Korean economic cooperation. A week prior, SK Group’s subsidiary SK Geo Centric announced plans to partner with French environmental service provider Suez and Canadian

Technology June 21, 2022

SK Chairman Chey Tae-won called on group executives to revamp a corporate valuation tool to better communicate with shareholders against the backdrop of global supply chain disruptions and monetary tightening, the company said Sunday. In an extended management meeting held Friday, Chey stressed how the new corporate valuation tool -- designed to incorporate nonfinancial elements into financial performance measurement -- can reflect the business status of an SK Group affiliate with higher accura

Technology June 19, 2022

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong returned to South Korea Saturday, with a renewed focus on the auto parts business. As the de facto leader of Korea‘s largest conglomerate arrived at Seoul Gimpo Business Aviation Center at around 9:40 a.m., Saturday, he told reporters that he “could feel drastic changes in the auto industry.” The remark came as he met German carmaker BMW, a key battery client of Samsung’s secondary battery arm Samsung SDI, and visited Samsu

Technology June 18, 2022

Litigation in the high court between internet provider SK Broadband and global streaming service Netflix is taking a twist, as Netflix invokes new logic to argue it has no obligation to pay network usage fees to the South Korean company. Legal representatives of Netflix argued in a Seoul High Court trial Wednesday evening that the two companies had consented to the principle that the interconnection of separate internet networks, also known as “peering,” would involve zero payment

Technology June 16, 2022

Samsung Electronics top executives on Tuesday held talks with representatives of chip photolithography equipment maker ASML, including its Chief Executive Officer Peter Wennink, the South Korean tech giant said Wednesday. Representatives of Samsung, including Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman and de facto leader; and Kyung Kye-hyun, co-chief executive officer in charge of Samsung’s semiconductor business, visited the headquarters of ASML in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Samsung said in a state

Technology June 15, 2022

Amid growing speculation that the world’s behemoth chipmakers are envisioning a game-changing consortium investing in United Kingdom-based chip design house Arm, all eyes are on whether South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics will join the team. Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong is now on a two-week trip to Europe, and is widely anticipated to be heading to the UK after Germany and the Netherlands. Once Lee’s visit to the UK is confirmed, Arm is speculated to be on

Technology June 15, 2022

South Korean lithium-ion battery cell maker LG Energy Solution on Monday unveiled a 730 billion won ($567 million) plan to expand production of batteries for electric vehicles here, including the next-generation 4680-type cylindrical batteries, which are bigger than current conventional designs. In an apparent bid to supply to carmakers like US electric vehicle giant Tesla, the company will pour in 581.8 billion won from June 2022 until October 2023 by adding a 9 gigawatt-hour pr

Technology June 13, 2022

The latest announcement of US logic chip designer Advanced Micro Devices’ next-generational processor standard for data center servers indicates that a collaboration with South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics is imminent. This comes as AMD’s chip architecture in the making is to be compatible with the groundbreaking Samsung-backed memory standard Compute Express Link, in order for the chip platform to go full throttle. AMD hinted at heterogeneous computing by opening up to in

Technology June 13, 2022

Kim Jae-youl, a council member of the International Skating Union, was elected president of the organization at the ISU Congress held on Friday in Phuket, Thailand. Kim, the brother-in-law of tech giant Samsung’s de facto leader Lee Jae-yong, has become the first non-European to lead the ISU since its foundation in 1892. The candidate from South Korea is a short-track speed skating powerhouse who won 77 out of 119 possible votes. Kim will serve as ISU president until 2026. He earlier p

Technology June 10, 2022

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong has steered clear of a legal risk involving his alleged violation of a restriction on his employment that is effective until 2026. The Seoul Metropolitan Police decided not to refer the case involving the 53-year-old de facto leader of the South Korea-based tech giant to the prosecution, considering he was not paid for his casual work as an unregistered director, according to activist groups on Friday. Seven civil activist groups, including the C

Technology June 10, 2022

South Korean telecommunications carrier LG Uplus is poised to discover more commercial use cases of artificial intelligence, as it looks to launch a voicebot for mom-and-pop stores and a personalized recommendation system for its TV viewers and online shoppers, its data head told a news conference on Thursday. LG Uplus aims to launch a new conversational voicebot service that understands the natural speech of human customers and interacts with them by as early as August this year. This differe

Technology June 9, 2022

South Korean telecommunications giant KT said Thursday it plans to spend a combined 27 trillion won ($21.5 billion) in the field of network infrastructure, artificial intelligence and cloud computing over the next five years until 2026. KT, Korea‘s largest telecommunications firm by revenue as of 2021, also pledged to hire 28,000 employees during the same period. The 12 trillion won package will be used for AI, cloud computing and media contents. KT will hone AI-powered products such a

Technology June 9, 2022

South Korean chemicals-to-materials firm SKC has inked a deal to sell its polyester film business to Seoul-based private equity firm Hahn & Co. for 1.6 trillion won ($1.27 billion) following a split-off, according to the firm’s regulatory filing Wednesday. The deal, involving operations in Korea, China and the United States and film processing unit SKC Hi-Tech & Marketing, is anticipated to reach closure before the end of this year, the filing said. All polyethylene film-related

Industry June 8, 2022