South Korean logistics company Hanjin Transportation Co. said Wednesday it will strengthen its global business to nearly triple the segment's revenue in the next three years. The company said in a statement it is targeting to boost sales from the global business division to 1 trillion won ($789 million) by 2025 from 375.5 billion won in 2021. To that end, Hanjin will seek to establish a digital forwarding platform, bolster its cross-border e-commerce through the expansion of its global dist

Kakao Corp., the operator of South Korea's top mobile messenger KakaoTalk, said Wednesday its first-quarter net profit jumped by more than fivefold from a year earlier, due to one-off gains from the disposal of its stocks in a local crypto exchange operator. Net income reached 1.32 trillion won ($1 billion) in the January-March period, compared with 239.8 billion won the previous year, the company said in a regulatory filing. Its fourth-quarter net profit in 2021 was 224 billion won. Operating p

Global tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. retained the No. 1 spot on the list of South Korea's top 500 firms by sales, with 39 businesses newly making the list, a corporate tracker said Wednesday. Samsung Electronics, the flagship unit of South Korea's leading family-controlled conglomerate Samsung Group, remained the biggest company last year, with its top line coming to 279.6 trillion won ($221 billion), according to CEO Score. Leading automaker Hyundai Motor Co., the marquee unit of automakin

Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Corp. said Wednesday their combined sales in the United States fell 18 percent last month from a year earlier due mainly to the prolonged chip shortages. Hyundai and Kia sold a total of 120,731 vehicles in the US in April from 147,700 units a year ago, according to the companies' sales data. Hyundai's sales declined 20 percent on-year to 61,668 units last month from 77,523 a year ago, while Kia's dropped 16 percent to 59,063 from 70,177 during the same per

SEOGWIPO, Jeju Island -- The International Electric Vehicle Expo, an annual exhibition of green cars, kicked off Tuesday for its ninth run bringing around 200,000 industry experts and visitors from around 50 countries to the South Korean island of Jeju. While the expo preparation committee had promised to expand the participation of finished car brands this year, only two, Tesla and Polestar, took part in this year’s event. But the chairman stressed that they must also focus on giving S

The president of South Korean flag carrier Korean Air on Tuesday called for lifting rules that obligate passengers to submit PCR test results before departure and on arrival here. Referring to other countries that have entirely scrapped COVID testing for travelers from April, Woo Ki-hong, the president of Korea Air, said the South Korean government has hampered local air carriers’ efforts in resuming their international operations. “Other airlines have expanded up to the 90 percent

With digital technology becoming the key drivers for growth across industries, South Korea’s tech behemoths Naver and Kakao are going all-in to win the tech war using artificial intelligence through AI-powered search engines and logistics solutions businesses. Naver announced Tuesday it has made upgrades to its AI search engine, called “Airsearch,” now offering more optimized search results for users. “Since the Naver mobile app has access to users’ personal info

KB Kookmin Bank opened a unmanned branch within top retailer Emart‘s No Brand store in Express Bus Terminal in Seoul on Tuesday. The branch, launched in partnership with Emart, connects users with bank tellers through video calls and provides basic services including wiring, issuance of debit cards and more.

High-efficiency particulate air filters with new technology capable of killing 99.9% of viruses, they say

Non-fungible tokens have become the latest marketing tool by South Korean companies, as many of them are issuing the digital asset to garner attention from young customers. Hyundai Motor said Tuesday it will launch a new collection of 10,000 Shooting Star NFTs on May 9 through its NFT marketplace. The collection is a sequel to a short film released last month by the carmaker and Meta Kongz, a local blockchain technology platform company and the creator of an NFT brand of the same name. The la

Samsung SDI argues overcharged battery not cause of fire

Kakao Games Corp., the gaming unit of South Korean tech giant Kakao Corp., reported Tuesday its first-quarter net profit rose 54.2 percent on-year to 28.3 billion won ($22.3 million) thanks to the popularity of its mobile title "Odin Valhalla Rising" and improved cost management. Operating profit spiked 169.7 percent on-year to 42.1 billion won in the January-March period, while sales rose 104.7 percent to 266.3 billion won, according to a regulatory filing. A Kakao Games official sa

KakaoBank Corp., a South Korean internet-only bank, Tuesday reported a 43.2 percent jump in its first-quarter earnings as its customer base continued to expand amid the coronavirus pandemic. Net income came to 66.80 billion won (US$52.8 million) in the January-March period, compared with 46.66 billon won tallied a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. Operating profit also surged 63.8 percent on-year to a record quarterly high of 88.41 billion won, with sales advancing 50.5 perc

South Korean information technology service provider LG CNS has kicked off the process of its initial public offering (IPO) that could take place as early as in the second half of this year, industry sources said Tuesday. LG CNS, a unit of South Korea's No. 4 conglomerate LG Group, sent a request for proposal to major domestic and overseas securities companies the previous day to choose the lead manager of the envisioned IPO. The company is known to have launched an in-house task force to prepar

Joint forum held by The Korea Herald, AmCham explores how metaverse is entering a new phase in post-pandemic world