South Korean stocks traded 0.5 percent lower late Tuesday morning, led by losses in utilities and tech issues, analysts said. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) slipped 10.01 points to 1,997.03 as of 11:20 a.m.State-run electricity provider Korea Electric Power Corp. dipped nearly 2 percent, with tech blue chip Samsung Electronics falling 1.6 percent. In contrast, telecom and auto shares continued their winning streak, with SK Telecom jumping around 3 percent. The local curr

South Korean stocks got off to a weak start but soon rose slightly on the back of foreign buying amid a lack of positive leads, analysts said. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) began 0.15 percent lower as soon as it opened but turned to trade up 2.24 points, or 0.11 percent to 2,009.28 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Overseas investors started off snapping up local shares worth 14.9 billion won (US$14.1 million) as of 9:15 a.m., driving up the main index. Telecom and au

NEW YORK (AP)— Apple shares are falling in premarket trading after The Wall Street Journal reported that the company has cut its orders for iPhone 5 components due to weaker-than-expected demand.The newspaper says two people it did not identify by name told it that Apple's first-quarter orders for iPhone 5 screens have dropped to about half of what the company had planned to order.The report says one of the sources told the newspaper that the U.S.-based company has also cut orders for components

Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S lineup has shipped more than 100 million units in less than three years since being launched in 2010, the company said on Monday. Among the lineup consisting of Galaxy S, Galaxy S2 and Galaxy S3, the latest S3 has shipped more than 40 million just over half a year by selling an average 190,000 handsets a day worldwide. The Galaxy S3 model promised to be a hot-seller, having passed the 10 million mark in just 50 days following its launch in May last year with new fea

Korea’s troubled budget carrier in talks to find new investor from overseas

Chung Mong-koo, son of late Hyundai founder Chung Ju-yung, prioritized normalizing the management of Kia Motors when he took office as chairman of Hyundai Motor Group in 1998.Under a full-fledged effort by the Hyundai chief and vice chairman Chung Eui-sun, Kia was upgraded to a key subsidiary of the automotive group after it was acquired by Hyundai in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis.Since 2005, Kia has focused on the European market and has identified design as its “core future growth engi

LG Electronics has sued Samsung Electronics over a controversial ad comparing the size of refrigerators manufactured by the two companies with unorthodox methods, according to the courts on Monday.The lawsuit, in which LG filed for more than 10 billion won in damages, was filed at a Seoul district court last Friday. “The ad deeply hurt our corporate image, and also affected our sales,” the company said, explaining why it decided to file the suit. “Further, we believe that unless we take addition

The new government is likely to break up state-run Korea Electric Power Corp.’s monopoly in the electricity sales market, according to news reports.The transition committee is discussing ways to restructure the electricity market, which was one of the campaign pledges of President-elect Park Geun-hye, the reports said.The direction for restructuring is to remove the inefficiency caused by the electricity monopoly of KEPCO and to stabilize the supply and demand of electricity. The reform of the e

Three financial firms owned by Woori Financial Group are expected to draw popularity in the mergers and acquisitions market, as financial authorities are set to resume the policy to privatize the state-funded group through a “split-sale” method this year.When the privatization process is revitalized, possibly eye-catching subsidiaries of Woori Financial could be Woori Investment & Securities, Kyongnam Bank and Kwangju Bank, according to officials in the bank industry.Their forecast comes as the