Samsung Electronics said Friday its sales of air conditioners have more than doubled so far this month, compared to a year ago, due to the sweltering heat. From July 1 to 22, the company saw its sales of air conditioners spike more than twice from the same period in 2020, the company said. Sales of Bespoke Wind-free Gallery, the company’s highest-end air conditioner, have jumped more than 95 percent in July compared to a year earlier. To further drive sales, Samsung is offering up to

Expectations are high that Samsung Electronics, which for months deliberated on a new, $17 billion US investment plan, may finally be ready to make an official announcement in August. According to industry sources on Friday, Samsung is accelerating the internal process for concluding its plan to construct a new chip fabrication line for foundry in the US. Some news reports said Thursday that the City of Austin in Texas, where the South Korean firm already has a chip plant up and running, is

South Korean aerospace and defense firm LIG Nex1 said Friday it had established a committee dedicated to overseeing the company’s operations and initiatives in environmental, social and governance fields. The committee will designate one of the outside directors as the chairman and hold regular semi-annual meetings and occasional meetings to set strategies and policies for the firm’s long-term ESG goals. Since 2009, LIG Nex1 has had a corporate social responsibility task force.

Sales of summer appliances, including air conditioners and fans, are soaring in South Korea, industry sources said Friday, as the sweltering heat continues to scorch the country. With the daily temperature reaching as high as 38 C in some regions, demand for air conditioners and other cooling appliances is also going up with the stay-at-home trend remaining solid amid the fourth wave of the pandemic here, people in the electronics industry said. Samsung Electronics Co. said its domestic air co

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest smartphone maker, is running a special trade-in program in the United States for its upcoming new foldable smartphones, industry insiders said Friday, amid its push to expand its customer base of foldable handsets. Samsung's US unit recently opened a reservation page that allows people to exchange up to two of their old devices for a new foldable smartphone to be launched next month. The South Korean tech giant earlier this week confirmed that its n

Samsung Electronics Co. said Friday it has released upgraded software-defined networking (SDN) solutions to help mobile operators and enterprises better manage their 5G networks. The South Korean tech giant said its new SDN solutions will support enterprises in various sectors, including education, retail and energy, introducing new 5G application, services and infrastructure. SDN is a network architecture approach that enables the network to be easily controlled via software solutions. It all

GS Engineering & Construction is partnering with the city of Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, to invest in green energy, the company announced Wednesday. The construction company said it signed a memorandum of understanding with the Pohang city government to build solar energy and hydrogen fuel cell energy production plants set to run in the Yeongilman 4th General Industrial Complex. The partnership is in line with Pohang’s commitment to turn the area into a carbon-neutral zone b

GM Korea Co., the South Korean unit of General Motors Co., and its labor union reached a tentative wage deal on Thursday, one day after its unionized workers went on partial strike for higher pay. The deal includes an increase of 30,000 won ($26) in monthly base pay and a one-off bonus of 4.5 million won. The wage agreement is subject to a vote by union members. Unionized workers at GM Korea Co. launched a partial strike Wednesday to demand higher wages amid the protracted pandemic. The uni

Hyundai Motor sees sales surpass W30tr for the first time

South Korea‘s top internet portal operator Naver reached all-time highs in the second quarter this year, backed by improved performances of the company’s new businesses. According to Naver, the company’s sales in the April-June period reached 1.66 trillion won ($1.44 billion), increasing 30.4 percent from 1.2 trillion won from a year earlier. In the second quarter last year, Naver’s sales totaled around 1.9 trillion won, but 680 billion won of the total sales was from

Kia Corp., South Korea's No. 2 carmaker, said Thursday its second-quarter net profit soared more than 10-fold from a year earlier on a low base effect and strong sales of sports utility vehicles (SUVs). Net profit in the April-June period stood at 1.34 trillion won ($1.2 billion), skyrocketing 963.2 percent from a year earlier when its sales slumped amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the automaker said in a regulatory briefing. Operating profit shot up 924.5 percent on-year to 1.5 trillion won in the

Merck, the cutting-edge material developer from Germany, said Thursday the company has started mass production of hole transport materials for organic light-emitting diode displays used in smartphones. Better known as HTM, the material is applied to common layers of OLED panels, and helps improve the efficiency and lifespan of panels, the company said. Merck, which has been supplying the material for Korea’s largest OLED panel maker LG Display for large-size displays, will expand its

Posco chemical’s operating profit in the second quarter jumped a whopping 773.9 percent to 35.6 billion won ($30.9 million) on-year, the company announced Thursday. The refractory and secondary battery materials making unit of South Korean steel giant Posco not only logged record quarterly results in operating profit, but also in revenue, enjoying 480 billion won, a 41.1 percent surge in the same period. Posco Chemical is the country’s only firm that manufactures both cathodes

Telcon RF Pharmaceutical has received approval to carry out a phase 1 clinical study of Humanigen‘s COVID-19 treatment lenzilumab in South Korea, the company said Thursday. Lenzilumab is a monoclonal antibody drug developed by Humanigen for treating hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Telcon RF and its parent company KPM Tech are responsible for gaining regulatory approval and commercialization authorization of lenzilumab in South Korea and the Philippines, under the licensing transact

SK Materials and Group14 Technologies to establish $70 million next-generation anode plant with annual production in thousands of tons