CJ Cheiljedang Corp., South Korea’s leading food company, said Thursday that its fourth-quarter earnings rose more than seven times from a year earlier due to a one-off sale of stock holdings.Net profit reached 132.7 billion won ($117.8 million) in the October-December period, up 626.6 percent from 18.2 billion won tallied a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.Sales edged up 0.9 percent on-year to 159 trillion won in the cited period, and operating income gained 12.6 percent to

POSCO, Korea’s leading steelmaker, said Thursday that it has signed a preliminary deal to buy a stake in a Zimbabwean ferrochrome-smelting firm as part of efforts to secure a stable supply of the key raw material.The deal with Gurta of Swiss and AnchorHoldings of Zimbabwe will allow POSCO to secure a stake in Maranatha Ferrochrome, Zimbabwe’s third-largest ferrochrome-smelting firm, the South Korean firm said.POSCO said details such as the value of the contract have yet been decided. POSCO impor

U.S. consumers have filed class action suits against Samsung Electronics Co. as some of its TV models sold in the U.S. are found to have problems with power failures, the South Korean firm said Thursday.U.S. consumers have been complaining about some types of Samsung’s flat-screen TVs sold between 2006 and 2008 as they found problems with a power storage device called a capacitor, making it difficult for the TVs to power up.U.S. consumers have lodged class action lawsuits against the world’s lar

Hynix Semiconductor said Thursday that a U.S. court ruled in its favor against Rambus Inc., a U.S.-based technology licensing firm, in an antitrust law violation battle.The judge in the San Francisco court rejected allegations filed by Rambus that Hynix and Micron Technology were involved in a conspiracy ― manipulating the price of their memory chips and violating California’s antitrust law. “We welcome the decision reached by the court in the end of the first round and we will give our best eff

A television channel designed specifically to be watched by dogs Monday in San Diego for stay-home-canines while the owners are away at work or too busy to play. The first and only television network for dogs, DOGTV, scientifically developed and tested for four years, DOGTV, “a new channel for man‘s

Apple Inc. is working with component suppliers in Asia to test a new tablet computer with a screen smaller than the iPad, sources told The Wall Street Journal.Officials at some of Apple's suppliers, who asked to remain anonymous, said the company has shown them designs for a device with a screen siz

U.S. consumers have filed class action suits against Samsung Electronics Co. as some of its TV models sold in the U.S. are found to have problems with power failures, the South Korean firm said Thursday.    U.S. consumers have been complaining about some types of Samsung’s flat-screen T

Moody's Investors Service downgraded the credit rating of SK Telecom Co. on Wednesday in the latest move by global credit appraisers to lower the rating of South Korea's biggest mobile carrier after its takeover of a chipmaker.   Moody's cut the credit rating of SK Telecom by one notch to

Import car sales to consumers under 30 increased while the percentage of young customers in the overall market including Korean carmakers dropped last year.According to the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association, combined car sales by local and foreign automakers to consumers in their 20s stood at 140,777 units in 2011, down 6.4 percent from a year earlier.Further, sales to consumers under 20 declined by 17.4 percent to 1,897 units.As a result, the percentage of consumers under 30 dropped by

Samsung Group said on Wednesday that it will put an emphasis on its educational support project for middle school students of low income families, nurturing it as the conglomerate’s key social contribution activity.The country’s top conglomerate said it signed an agreement with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to support a total of 15,000 middle schoolers beginning in March.Dubbed the “Dream Class” project, it will have college students teach English and mathematics during after

The Korea Communications Commission discussed possible punitive measures against KT Corp., which limited Internet access for Samsung-made smart televisions for five days, during a regular meeting of its leadership on Wednesday. The state-run telecom regulator also decided to seek ways to punish Samsung for causing the service shutdown as it refused to talk with KT over the network use of its smart TV owners. As part of their agreement announced Tuesday, KT resumed Internet services like video-on