SKC Co., a South Korean maker of chemicals and film products, said Friday that its net profit nearly tripled in the first quarter from a year earlier due to a stake sale. For the January-March period, SKC posted a net profit of 86.1 billion won ($70.5 million), a sharp increase from a profit of 23 billion a year earlier. SKC said the sale of its stake in SKC Kolon PI Inc., a maker of polyimide film used in displays, semiconductors and electric vehicles, boosted the company's bottom line. In

South Korea's top multiplex chain CJ CGV Co. said Friday its first-quarter net loss widened sharply from a year earlier due to the coronavirus outbreak. CJ CGV said in a regulatory filing that it lost 118.6 billion won ($97.3 million) in the January-March period, compared with a net loss of 8.6 billion won a year earlier. Yet, the first-quarter net loss was smaller than a shortfall of 213.5 billion won recorded in the previous quarter. Revenue nose-dived 47.6 percent on-year to 243.3 billion

LG Corp. on Friday reported its first-quarter net income of 592.1 billion won ($ 485.4 million), up 30.8 percent from a year earlier. Operating profit for the January-March period was 607.7 billion won, up 31.2 percent from a year ago, the company said in a regulatory filing. Revenue fell 2.6 percent to 1.58 trillion won. (Yonhap)

  SK Chemicals Co. on Friday reported its first-quarter net profit of 13 billion won ($10.7 million), swinging from a loss of 11.6 billion won a year earlier.  Operating income for the January-March period was 8 billion won, up 119.2 percent from a year ago, the company said in a regulatory filing. Sales fell 20.9 percent to 252.5 billion won.  (Yonhap)

Lotte Chemical Corp., a major South Korean petrochemical company, said Friday that it swung to a net loss in the first quarter from a year earlier due to weak demand amid the coronavirus pandemic. For the January-March period, Lotte Chemical posted a net loss of 90 billion won ($73.7 million), shifting from a net profit of 224 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. Lotte Chemical said the net loss is blamed on weak demand amid the coronavirus pandemic as well as

Once industry-leading dairy firm faces boycott after series of controversies

Subcutaneous infliximab injection Remsima SC is towing Celltrion’s revenue in 2020, according to the company, Friday. Despite the COVID-19 scare dampening the global economy, Celltrion said in a regulatory filing that it saw a 68.2 percent on-year revenue growth and 55.4 percent on-year operating profit growth in the first quarter. Celltrion posted 372.8 billion won ($305.4 million) in revenue and 120.2 billion won in operating profit. Remsima SC is a subcutaneously injectable inflixi

South Korean liquor maker HiteJinro said Friday it will renew its flagship soju product Chamisul Fresh, lowering the alcoholic content by 0.1 percent to 16.9 percent to match with rival soju brands. Chamisul Fresh is the No. 1 soju brand by sales here. According to the company, the renewed Chamisul Fresh is produced by applying different manufacturing techniques and it will also change part of the package design, to add Environmental Product Declaration mark issued by Korea Environmental Ind

LG Uplus, the third-largest mobile carrier in South Korea, said Friday it has clocked a 11.5 percent on-year growth in operating profit in the first quarter, despite adverse market conditions due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The telecom affiliate of LG Group posted 3.28 trillion won ($2.69 billion) in revenue and 219.8 billion won operating profit during the January-March period, up 11.9 percent and 11.5 percent, respectively, compared to the same period last year. Its net profit stood at 148.8

South Korean air carriers, hit by unprecedented reduction in passenger traffic and suspension of routes over COVID-19, are slowly resuming international operations, according to industry sources Friday. Korean Air plans to open 32 out of 110 international routes from June 1. It will also resume operation of flights to Washington, Seattle, Vancouver and Toronto in 50 days after the routes have been halted since March.  The number of routes to San Francisco, Chicago and Atlanta will be als

Hyundai Motor Group said Friday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the National IT Industry Promotion Agency for strategic development and management for open source software.  Under the MOU, they will support each other to make use of open source softwares in the automotive manufacturing business to increase global competitiveness, as well as to establish a system for supply network of open source software, the carmaker said.  Open source software is based on publicly

The COVID-19 pandemic is proving to be a boon for online service providers. Korea’s NHN, for one, posted a 59 percent increase in year-on-year net profit in the first quarter on the back of a strong performance by its online payment solution, Payco, and its online games. According to its regulatory filing on Friday, NHN posted revenue of 394.6 billion won ($323 million), up 6.5 percent on-year; operating profit of 28.3 billion won, up 30.2 percent on-year; and net profit of 17.6 billio

LG Chem is still investigating the gas leak in Visakhapatnam, India, that killed at least 11 and sent about 1,000 people to hospitals. “There was no second leak, but we have requested the police to evacuate the local residents in case the temperature within the tanks goes up,” said an LG Chem official, denying media reports suggesting more leaks were happening at the plant and that the number of casualties could grow. “We are currently undertaking necessary measures to cool

The total volume of online and mobile shopping transactions jumped 11.8 percent in March compared to a year earlier amid the staying home trend, data by Statistics Korea showed. The total online shopping transactions stood at 12.58 trillion won ($10.2 billion), and it accounted for 28.2 percent of the entire retail sales including offline sales. Mobile shopping accounted for 67.3 percent of the total non-face-to-face shopping transactions, recording 8.47 trillion won in March. The figure is

Samsung Electronics’ compliance monitoring committee on Thursday demanded heir Lee Jae-yong and group affiliates come up with more details of plans to root out illegal practices. The committee led by former Chief Justice Kim Ji-hyung held a meeting to discuss the televised public apology delivered by Vice Chairman Lee on Wednesday.  In response to the committee’s recommendation in March, Lee made the apology about unlawful actions taken to smooth the power transfer from his