Marketing director Florent Leroi says Royal Salute-inspired art offers new way for young people to enjoy whisky brand

South Korea's Lotte Duty Free retained its second spot among global travel retailers in 2020, with China Duty Free Group (CDFG) leaping to the No. 1 position, an industry report showed Tuesday. Lotte Duty Free ranked second worldwide with 4.82 billion euros ($5.82 billion) in sales last year, the same standing as that a year earlier, according to the Moodie Davitt report. Lotte Duty Free benefited from Chinese resellers who buy products in large quantities and sell them back home, government s

Hyundai Steel Co., South Korea's No. 2 steelmaker, said Tuesday it swung to the black in the first quarter from a year earlier on strong sales amid the global economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. For the three months that ended March 31, Hyundai Steel posted a net profit of 219.9 billion won ($197.8 million), shifting from a loss of 115.4 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. The company said price hikes of its products gave a boost to the quarterly bott

South Korean battery maker Samsung SDI Co. said Tuesday its first-quarter earnings jumped on a low base effect and solid demand for electric vehicle (EV) battery products. Its net profit reached 150 billion won ($135 million) in the January-March period, up from 729 million won a year earlier, as it basked in a sharp rise in gains from equity ties with a display affiliate, Samsung SDI said in a regulatory filing. Operating profit soared 146.7 percent on-year to 133.2 billion won, and sales inc

Samsung Electronics Co. expanded its presence in the Indian smartphone market in the first quarter of the year on the back of multiple new handsets, a report showed Tuesday, as the South Korean tech giant aims to fend off challenges from Chinese players. Samsung represented 20 percent of the smartphone shipments in India in the first quarter, up from 16 percent a year earlier, according to market researcher Counterpoint Research. The company remained in the runner-up spot in the Indian smartph

Naver Corp., South Korea's dominant internet portal and search engine, said Tuesday it aims to lead the local web browser market with its own product named Whale in three years. Whale -- a Chromium-based web browser released in October 2017 -- is the fourth mostly used web browsing tool in terms of the market share. Google Inc.'s Chrome topped the list with more than a whopping 60 percent. "Naver aims to top the local web browser market in three years," Kim Hyo, a Naver official, sai

Korea Forest Service and the World Bank joined together for a workshop in honor of the Korea Green Growth Trust Fund’s (KGGTF) Korean Green Innovation Day (KGID) last Friday. The workshop was held for the first anniversary of the joint cooperation between the two organizations, aimed to invigorate cooperation through sharing Korea’s success and experience and to promote Korea’s KGGTF project to the World Bank. The Forest Service drew interest from the World bank by introduci

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's leading memory chip producer, on Tuesday released a high performing enterprise solid state drive (SSD) that supports the latest serial attached SCSI (SAS) interface. The PM1653 is the industry's first 24G SAS SSD made with sixth-generation V-NAND memory chips, according to Samsung, with its storage capacity ranging from 800 gigabytes to 30.72 terabytes for enterprise server systems. SAS is a high-speed data transfer interface used for servers or storage dev

S-Oil Corp., South Korea's No. 3 refiner, said Tuesday it turned to the black in the first quarter from a year earlier on rising prices of petrochemical products and inventory-related gains. S-Oil's net income reached 344.7 billion won ($310.1 million) in the January-March period, turning from a loss of 880.6 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. Its logged a higher-than-expected operating profit of 629.2 billion won in the first quarter, the highest in five year

Samsung Electronics Co. on Tuesday launched a new robot vacuum cleaner with upgraded artificial intelligence (AI) solutions here as the tech giant eyes to boost home appliance sales amid the pandemic-driven stay-at-home trend. The BESPOKE JetBot AI vacuum cleaner comes in five colors at a price of 1.59 million won ($1,430). The product, which was first unveiled at the all-digital Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2021, is equipped with Intel's Movidius AI solution and utilizes LiDAR and 3-D sens

Public organizations will have to choose only eco-friendly cars when purchasing new automobiles, in line with the country's green energy drive, the industry ministry said Tuesday. "In order to speed up the transition, it is necessary to create new demands," the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a statement. The eco-friendly cars refer to electric vehicles (EVs) and hydrogen fuel-cell cars, as well as hybrid models. South Korea launched a rule in 2016 that required publi

Retail sales in South Korea jumped 18.5 percent in March from a year earlier on the back of seasonal promotions by offline stores, with local consumers also turning to "revenge shopping" amid the prolonged virus pandemic. The combined sales of 26 major offline and online retailers reached 13.1 trillion won ($11.7 billion) last month, up from 11.1 trillion won a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Sales from offline stores jumped

South Korea said Tuesday it will strengthen support to exporters facing a hike in freight costs by increasing marine shipping services amid the recovery of global trade from the new coronavirus pandemic. Under the plan, South Korea plans to add two new scheduled services for the route to the Americas per month to cope with a shortage in shipping, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. The government plans to add more ships for routes to Europe and Southeast Asia depending on

Major South Korean credit card issuer Samsung Card Co. said Tuesday its net profit soared nearly 23 percent in the first quarter of the year on a rebound in consumer confidence. Net profit stood at 138.4 billion won ($124.7 million) in the January-March period, up 23.4 percent from a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. Operating profit jumped 23.1 percent on-year to 185.3 billion won, with sales rising 0.6 percent to 918.1 billion won. Samsung Card attributed its stellar fi

South Korea's major business lobby groups on Tuesday said they have submitted a petition for the pardon of Lee Jae-yong, the imprisoned de facto leader of Samsung Group, to the presidential office for the sake of the national economy amid a global semiconductor shortage. The five major lobby groups -- the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Korea Enterprises Federation, the Korea Federation of SMEs, the Korea International Trade Association and the Federation of Middle Market Enterprise