Kakao Pay, the online payment subsidiary of Kakao Corp, announced Tuesday it has expanded to Thailand, making the service available at major payment points from department stores and pharmacies to a taxi-hailing platform. Central Retail, one of Thailand's largest retail corporations, now supports Kakao Pay at over 3,000 of its locations. These include department stores like Central World and Central Embassy, drugstores such as Kiyoshi Matsumoto and retail outlets like Muji and Tops Club. St

Korea’s aerospace, heavy industries leaders strengthen partnership

Hyundai Motor Group said Tuesday that its three startups -- Pitin, Madde and Evacycle -- spun off less than a year after participating in the company's in-house startup incubator program. It usually takes more than a year for startups to become separate firms from their parent company, but they have shown great potential in the automotive and semiconductor business in just nine months, the carmaker said. Pitin has developed a battery subscription service using refurbished batteries for co

SK Telecom, South Korea's largest wireless carrier by membership, on Tuesday unveiled an ambitious goal of setting the global standard for quantum-safe communication, a more advanced security technology that protects the whole communication process from attacks by quantum computers. The company said it plans to share the progress of its ongoing development project during the Seoul meeting of the UN-affiliated ITU-T Study Group 17 that kicked off its weeklong program on Tuesday. Quantum-safe

Hundreds of thousands of tons of low-quality coal suspected of being imported into Korea after fake tests

South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchange Upbit has been at the forefront of preventing fraudulent digital transactions, with its state-of-the-art artificial intelligence-based fraud detection system, amid increasing virtual asset investment and related crimes. Using its latest technology, the company said Tuesday it has prevented voice phishing scams of some 25 billion won ($18.9 million). According to South Korea’s financial authorities, the annual scale of financial damages f

Oriental Brewery CEO Ben Verhaert (third from left) and other executive members pose for a picture to celebrate the completion of a solar power system at the company’s brewery in Gwangju, Tuesday. The company said the solar panels will help eliminate 1,709 metric tons of carbon emissions per year. With more plans to expand the solar power-based production system, the company aims to run all its production facilities on renewable energy only by 2025. (Oriental Brewery)

DGB Financial Group, a Korean financial holding company, said it plans to establish an asset management company in Singapore. The company recently submitted an application to the Monetary Authority of Singapore seeking a license to operate as a registered fund management company. "Our primary focus for now is securing the approval as Singapore financial authorities have tightened their approval processes due to the substantial influx of Hong Kong funds into the country," a DGB Financia

Audi Korea launched the latest models of its all-electric sports utility vehicles -- the Audi Q4 40 e-tron and Audi Sportback Q4 40 e-tron -- in the domestic market on Tuesday. The carmaker said the latest electric SUVs have longer driving distances per full charge than previous models, with the Audi Q4 40 e-tron capable of driving 411 kilometers and the Audi Sportback Q4 40 e-tron able to drive 409 kilometers. The electric SUVs are priced starting at 61.7 million won ($46,600). (Audi Korea)

South Korean tire maker Kumho Tire revealed a new commercial under the slogan “Your EV Partner, Kumho Tire” riding the increasing popularity of electric vehicles. The commercial addresses the company’s new tires specifically tailored for EVs. Compared to the internal combustion engine cars, EV-customized tires need to be strong enough to support heavier vehicles, better grip the road, and lower the noise levels. In the commercial, Kumho Tire introduces its cutting-edge technolo

South Korea will export "hanwoo," or premium Korean beef, to Cambodia for the first time, the agriculture ministry said Tuesday. The two nations signed the first contract for South Korean beef to be exported to the Southeast Asian country Monday, eight years after reaching an agreement on quarantine negotiations, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. South Korea aims to export 2,000 tons of hanwoo worth US$100 million over the next five years, it added. In M

Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., South Korea's No. 2 builder, has placed 11th among global construction companies in terms of overseas sales, an industry report showed Tuesday. Hyundai E&C posted $6.83 billion in overseas sales in 2022, up 18.6 percent from a year earlier and the 11th-largest worldwide, according to the 2023 international builder ranking by the US trade journal Engineering News Record. Hyundai E&C's 2023 ranking was up two notches from the previous y

Shares close higher on reduced risks, long-term outlook

Korea's export downturn will see a recovery in the first half of next year, with the semiconductor market expected to rebound in the fourth quarter of this year, the Korea International Trade Association forecast on Monday. The prediction was based on findings that the primary factor behind Korea's export slump is the slowdown in the global information and communications technology market, according to KITA. “Upon closer examination, I realized that the decrease in the global d

Genesis BBQ, the operator of Korean fried chicken franchise BBQ Chicken, said Monday it has been ranked one of the fastest-growing restaurant chains in the United States, for three consecutive years. BBQ Chicken was named seventh among the top 25 restaurant brands that achieved the fastest growth ranked by Nation’s Restaurant News, a US publication that covers the food service industry. The criteria for the ranking includes the growth in the number of outlets, total sales and sales per s