Samsung Electronics Co. unveiled a new lineup of consumer-oriented solid state drives on Wednesday boasting storage capacity of up to 4 terabytes with improved speed and reasonable price tags.The South Korean tech giant said it will release the Samsung 860 QVO built on the high-density 4-bit multilevel cell NAND flash architecture next month in some 50 markets including South Korea and the United States.Compared to 3-bit products, the 4-bit solution can increase the amount of data stored in a ch

More than 7 in 10 large South Korean firms have changed or are considering overhauling their pay systems due to the country's higher minimum wage, a poll showed Wednesday.According to the survey of 108 big businesses, about 30 percent of respondents said they have reformed their pay structures concerning the minimum wage, with 43 percent reviewing an overhaul.The remaining companies replied they have no plans to reform their wage systems due to either administrative difficulties or exemptions fr

Samsung BioLogics said Wednesday it has filed an administrative lawsuit against a recent ruling by the country‘s financial regulator that the company violated accounting rules. 　Samsung BioLogics, the biotechnology unit of Samsung Group, also asked the Seoul Administrative Court to nullify penalties that were imposed by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) over the ruling. (Yonhap)　After months of regulatory review, the Securities and Futures Commission under the FSC ruled earlier this month

SK Holdings said Tuesday that it had acquired a 270 billion won ($239 million) stake in Lingbao Wason Copper Foil, a Chinese manufacturer of copper foil, an integral metal component used to build batteries that power electric vehicles.　With the acquisition, the parent company of South Korea’s third-largest conglomerate, SK Group, is now the second-largest shareholder of China’s top copper foil manufacturer.  (Yonhap)Copper foil is extremely thin and its production is a delicate process. Only six

European companies doing business in South Korea called on the Korean government to bring the nation’s business regulations in line with international standards, a step they said would benefit both foreign firms doing business here and domestic exporters in the global market, during a press conference in Seoul on Tuesday. Since the Korea-European Union free trade deal was implemented in 2011, the trade volume between the two regions has gradually risen. The EU is currently the largest source of

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won has left for the United States to oversee the conglomerate’s businesses in North America and to meet political and business leaders there, the group said Tuesday. The chairman will be briefed in Washington DC about SK’s energy, bio and petrochemical businesses and their plans next year. Chey will also hold meetings with US Sen. Johnny Isakson from Georgia, Kurt Campbell, chairman and CEO of The Asia Group and Edwin Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation, the

Posco, the nation’s largest steelmaker, plans to hire 5,500 additional workers over the next five years and expand corporate social responsibility programs under its new vision “With Posco” announced by its new chief in July.The company signed an agreement on Oct. 10 with the Korea Commission for Corporate Partnership, along with eight businesses including Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor, to reduce the income gap between large and smaller companies, the company said in a statement. Under t

Amid growing interest in personal mobility, a total of 1,283 units of the Twizy, an ultracompact electric vehicle manufactured by French carmaker Renault, have been sold in South Korea as of October, making it No. 1 in the new segment with market share of 80 percent, Renault Samsung Motors said Tuesday.After the Twizy was presented on a home-shopping program, around 3,700 customers signed up for consulting services in just an hour, three times more than expected.  Renault’s ultracompact electric

South Korean mobile shoppers used e-commerce platform Coupang the most in October, which saw about a 23 percent increase in the number of its monthly active users, industry data showed Tuesday.According to mobile application analysis company Wise App’s survey conducted on 23 million Android phone users here, at least 8.18 million of them had used Coupang for mobile shopping last month.It was followed by 11st with some 5.95 million monthly active users (MAUs) and WeMakePrice with 4.36 million use

South Korea's retail-to-chemical conglomerate, Lotte Group, will sell its two financial units, the group's holding company said Tuesday, in a move that speeds up its transition into a holding company structure.Lotte Corp., the group's holding firm, said it has decided to sell the two financial units -- Lotte Insurance Co. and Lotte Card Co. (Yonhap)Under a South Korean law, an industrial holding company is banned from holding a majority stake in a financial unit to prevent owners of family-run b

Dutch health care giant Philips on Tuesday announced the launch of Lumify, a portable, app-based ultrasound solution compatible with Android mobile devices, in South Korea.According to the company, Lumify delivers data acquired via portable ultrasound transducers to connected Android devices through a mobile app, allowing health care providers to deliver ultrasound scans anywhere, anytime. In short, they would not need to access a cart-based ultrasound system.　 Lumify (Philips Korea)Philips had

Samsung Display has been engaged in social acitivities designed for teenagers and the underprivileged throughout this year as part of the firm’s corporate social responsibility program, the company said Tuesday.For teenagers, the firm has supported students in promoting the importance of reading with a project called “BOM (Bread of Mind) Dream” since 2014.  Participants attend the 2018 BOM Dream Awards ceremony. (Samsung Display)The program involved remodeling school libraries and providing othe

South Korea is scheduled to launch its small satellite from an Air Force base in the United States later this week, Seoul's science ministry said Tuesday. (Yonhap)The Ministry of Science and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology said the Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 3:32 a.m. (local time) on Thursday with the aim of putting the satellite, the Next Sat-1, into orbit.The 107-kilogram satellite, developed by KAIST from 2012-2017, w

WeWork Korea real estate management director shares business strategy specific to Korea, speaks of expansion in Seoul, Busan

South Korea's manufacturing and mining industry shipments rose in 2017 mainly due to growth in the electronics, refined petroleum and machinery sectors, a government report showed Tuesday.Combined shipments by companies with more than 10 employees reached 1,516 trillion won (US$1.34 trillion), up 7 percent, or 99.7 trillion won, from the year before. (Yonhap)The increase is attributable to a 14.6 percent on-year rise in electronics and a 26.6 percent gain in shipments from local refined petroleu