Amid deteriorating air quality in South Korea, air purifiers and clothes dryers have become more popular in the nation’s home appliance market, market data showed Tuesday. According to local discount store chain E-mart, sales of air purifiers from Jan. 1 to 20 jumped 180 percent compared to the same period last year. Sales of air purifiers ranked eighth this month in the home appliance category.In light of concerns over air quality, home appliances that reduce exposure to dust, such as air purif

McDonald’s in Korea will replace all of its motorbikes used for its delivery service with electric scooters by 2021, the Korean branch of the fast food chain said Tuesday.“In the next three years, we are going to replace around 1,400 vehicles (operated by) restaurants under direct management with electric bikes,” it said in a statement. Electric bikes are lined up at a McDonald's chain in Jeju. (McDonald's Korea)The fast food giant has placed around 40 electric bikes late last year for its opera

South Korean auto parts-maker Hyundai Mobis has secured $1.7 billion worth of overseas orders from foreign carmakers last year, marking a record on-year increase of 40 percent, the company said Tuesday.Overseas sales of core auto components by the company have also shown rapid growth, having shot up from $500 million in 2015 to $1.2 billion in 2017. (Hyundai Mobis)The company has secured around 60 percent of its overseas orders -- worth $1 billion -- from electric vehicle manufacturers from Chin

Korea Gas Corp. is seeking to take the lead in the global liquefied natural gas market on the strength of its solid leadership in the South Korean market and continued investment at home and abroad.The state-run company currently provides natural gas to more than 90 percent of the nation with its 72 natural gas storage facilities and pipes measuring a combined 4,848 kilometers in length.  Kogas’ offshore project in Myanmar (Kogas)Kogas is now expanding its business in the global market and is pa

SK hynix, the world’s second-largest memory chip provider, said Monday the company donated 3 billion won ($2.66 million) for welfare institutions in Gyeonggi and North Chungcheong provinces to support the vulnerable.The chipmaker’s employees and executives raised 1.5 billion won and the company offered another 1.5 billion won for a matching grant fund, dubbed “Happy Nanum Fund,” which is part of its corporate outreach. SK hynix has so far donated 19.5 billion won, benefiting around 32,000 elderl

LG Chem, Samsung SDI, SK Innovation anticipate improved annual earnings for 2018, better market conditions this year

Coca-Cola said Monday it will be releasing a New Year’s special package featuring BTS song titles.Each package option will have images of BTS as well as adaptations of song titles, such as “Your spring is today,” “You‘re my idol” and “This year is on fire.” (Coca-Cola)The company stated that the packaging intends to convey “hopeful messages to hard-working consumers that they are great the way they are.” The messages were influenced by BTS song titles as the band has been continually spreading p

Kyung Hee University’s Global Center for Pharmaceutical Ingredient Materials is hosting a symposium on Wednesday for working-level novel drug developers and students pursuing careers in the field. Firms involved with the Gyeonggi-do Regional Research Center, a regional project that supports advancement of science and technology, have also been invited, the organizers said.In July 2017, GPIM was selected as a GRRC business for a six-year research project to foster collaboration between business,

JTI Korea, the Korean unit of the global tobacco maker, said Monday that it has tapped Jose Luis Amador as the new CEO of the Korean unit. JTI Korea said Amador was chosen to lead the Korean company based on his combined experience in marketing and sales at global offices in Spain, Hong Kong and the head office in Switzerland.The Spanish CEO spent the last seven years in Mexico, where he led the Mexican unit and launch of global cigarette brand Winston in the country.  Jose Luis Amador (JTI Kore

Apple is exploiting local telecom companies for profit by unfairly collecting advertising funds, economists representing South Korea’s antitrust watchdog said last week during a second hearing on the matter.Yonhap“Apple’s (superior) position in business dealing with local telecom firms is recognized based on economic analysis. (Apple) collecting advertising funds are merely additional ways of exploiting telecom carriers’ communications service profits,” FTC investigators were quoted as having te

South Korea's industry ministry said Monday it will announce the blueprint on fostering the country's nuclear plant decommissioning industry in March in line with its new energy policy. While the government seeks to turn South Korea into a nuclear energy-free nation, there have been demands that the government should seek new opportunities to keep the country's energy industry running."We plan to prepare a plan to establish a nuclear-plant decommissioning research institute in the southeastern r

The global market for 8K TVs is expected to post weaker-than-expected growth this year amid a lack of available high-resolution content, market watchers said Monday. South Korean tech giants Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. boasted their 8K TVs with quadruple the pixels of Ultra HD models in the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, promoting them as new growth drivers in the premium segment.  (Yonhap)Despite the technological advances, industry watchers point out that the

The National Pension Service is increasingly under pressure to apply stricter yardsticks on their investments and management at invested firms, with growing risks from owners resulting in revenue and stock price drops. Political debates are also coincidentally brewing over whether the emphasized exercise of voting rights on governance issues would lead to more responsible investment of the state pension operator or to excessive state or social influence in the business realm. In July last year,

Kia Motors Corp. said Monday that early this month its total sales in Britain exceeded one million vehicles since it started exporting to the country 28 years ago. On Jan. 10, Kia's vehicle sales in the country hit the milestone after reporting 998,069 units at the end of December, the company said in a statement. (Yonhap)Kia entered the market with the Pride compact in 1991. It later launched models, such as the Sportage compact SUV, the Ceed hatchback, and the Morning mini car, it said. For al

South Korea's fixed-line operator SK Broadband Inc. said Monday that it is pushing to increase its network capacity to deal with the growing number of people using services offered by US video streaming platform Netflix.The company is planning to increase its data transfer speed for high-speed networks to 100 gigabits per second from 50 Gbps by doubling its overseas network in the wake of consumers' complaints over streaming quality. (SK Broadband)To watch Netflix in HD quality, a user must have