Toyota Motor Corp. and Ford Motor Co. led the four largest automakers by U.S. sales in reporting January gains that topped estimates, as buyers return to showrooms to begin a fourth consecutive year of growth.Toyota’s deliveries of cars and light trucks surged 27 percent and Ford’s climbed 22 percent, while General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC sales each rose 16 percent, the companies said Friday. Industrywide light-vehicle sales increased 14 percent, according to researcher Autodata Corp.,

Mercedes said it sold 22,501 vehicles last month, its best January, helped the C-Class sedan’s 11 percent climb to 7,214. Brand sales for BMW increased 0.7 percent to 16,513 units, boosted by a 56 percent gain for its X5 sport-utility vehicle. Toyota Motor Corp.’s Lexus rose 32 percent to 16,211, led by the ES sedan, which more than doubled to 5,186 deliveries. The two German automakers are vying to be the top luxury- auto brand in the U.S. after outselling Lexus the past two years. BMW vaulted

GM Korea, Renault Samsung, Ssangyong join fast-growing niche for breakthrough

At least 1,500 financial consumers have joined a class action suit against seven major life insurance firms, a spokesman of the Korea Finance Consumer Federation said Sunday.He said the lawsuit followed the allegation that the seven firms, including Samsung Life, had sought to collect more insurance premiums via price fixing.Samsung Life saw the most complaints as about 600 policyholders participated in the suit, followed by Kyobo Life Insurance Co. with about 360 and Hanwha Life Insurance with

Relations between Korea and the Arab world are too heavily skewed toward economic cooperation and it’s time now to create the right balance by taking them to the next level, according to a top Middle East expert.“If the two partners are to maintain and develop their intimate economic ties, they must first learn to truly understand the other,” Chung Yong-chil, secretary-general of the Korea-Arab Society, told The Korea Herald in an interview.The nonprofit organization was established in 2008 unde

New follow-up of action video game series “Grand Theft Auto,” which has provoked controversies over its violent and suggestive descriptions, will be globally released in September. U.S.-based game developer Rockstar Games announced in an official statement on Friday that the release date of “GTA V” has been fixed to Sept. 17. The title was previously scheduled to be launched early this year, but the developer later said that the game needs more time to complete. “The company apologi

The Seoul District Central Court on Friday sided with Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee by dismissing the claims by his elder brother Lee Maeng-hee for around 4.8 trillion won ($4.4 billion) of the Samsung fortune.Lee was joined by a few other members of the Samsung family who felt they were shortchanged in their rightful inheritance from the late Lee Byung-chull, their father and founder of Samsung. In the ruling for the first trial on the case, the judge said that “the time has expired