An explosion accident at a glass substrate plant in South Korea is likely to exacerbate the tight supply of display panels and maintain their prices at a high level, market watchers said Wednesday, burdening TV makers' procurement efforts. The explosion occurred last Friday when workers were replacing old pipes connected to a furnace at AGC Fine Techno Korea Co.'s glass substrate manufacturing plant in Gumi, some 250 kilometers south of Seoul. The accident injured nine workers, according to the

Amorepacific Corp. on Wednesday reported its 2020 net profit of 21.9 billion won ($19.6 million), down 90.2 percent from a year earlier. The company said in a regulatory filing that operating profit for the year fell 66.6 percent on-year to 143 billion won. Annual revenue decreased 20.6 percent to 4.43 trillion won. (Yonhap)

South Korea's top cosmetics maker Amorepacific Corp. said Wednesday its fourth-quarter net loss increased 1.7 percent year-on-year largely due to the impact from the coronavirus pandemic.    The company's net loss came to 58.9 billion won ($52.8 million) in the October-December period, compared to 57.9 billion won a year ago, the company said in a regulatory filing.    Operating loss stood at 9.2 billion won, marking a steep decline from 45.9 billion won the previous year.

Even as the COVID-19 pandemic crippled markets worldwide last year, South Korea’s three major mobile carriers have seen improved results from their investments in media and platform services, along with expanded 5G network businesses. According to the latest report from market research firm FnGuide, the combined revenue of South Korea’s three major mobile carriers in 2020 are expected to reach 55.7 trillion won, up 2.4 percent on-year. The combined operating profit of the three mob

World needs more batteries, but Samsung SDI remains conservative

LG Chem said Wednesday it will inject 30 billion won ($26.9 million) to add another customer technical support and development center in China. South Korea’s leading chemical firm signed an agreement with the city of Wuxi, China to build a local tech support center. LG Chem will invest about 30 billion won while Wuxi will provide the land and the infrastructure for the center, which will break ground in the first half of this year and begin operations in May next year. “The tech

S-Oil said Wednesday that it has achieved 6 million man-hours without an accident, maintaining a safe operational environment for 471 days from Oct. 22, 2019. “Our Ulsan plant has safely conducted three major maintenance operations during that period despite difficulties caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. This is the third time S-Oil has accomplished 6 million man-hours without a disaster since the company started business,” the company said in a release. To ensure the safety of empl

Korean Air is taking steps to launch its own international sightseeing flights without landing, the airline said on Wednesday. “We are taking necessary steps to operate chartered flights and the sales dates are under discussion,” one official at the airline said. The airline’s first international “flight to nowhere” has been given the green-light by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to take off on Feb. 27, the official added. The travel route is y

Steelmaker CEO empowers workers to refuse unsafe work instructions

Online shopping in South Korea hit a fresh record high in December as more people purchased products via e-commerce platforms amid tougher virus curbs caused by the pandemic, data showed Wednesday. The value of online transactions stood at 15.9 trillion won ($14.2 billion) in December, up 26.1 percent from the previous year, according to the data from Statistics Korea. The use of online shopping sharply rose amid the pandemic as people refrained from visiting stores over concerns about infecti

South Korea will invest 202.4 billion won ($181.8 million) this year in virtual reality (VR) technology and devices to support the growth of the country's digital content industry, according to the ICT ministry on Wednesday. The move comes after the government unveiled a broader interagency investment plan for the industry last year, setting aside over 400 billion won for this year, in line with its digital New Deal program, which aims to spend 58.2 trillion won in key tech industries to create

Sales of imported vehicles in South Korea jumped 27 percent in January from a year earlier on robust sales of German cars, an industry association said Wednesday. The number of newly registered foreign vehicles climbed to 22,321 units last month from 17,640 a year ago despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association (KAIDA) said in a statement. The three bestselling models last month were the Mercedes-Benz E 250 sedan, Mercedes-Benz E 350 4MATIC seda

Samsung Electronics Co.'s foundry capacity share in legacy nodes is estimated to rank fourth in 2021, a report showed Wednesday, amid its push to increase its presence in the contract chipmaking sector with advanced fabrication processes. Samsung, the world's largest memory chipmaker, was projected to account for 10 percent of global foundry capacity in matured nodes, which refers to the 40-nanometer and below chipmaking technology process, according to market researcher Counterpoint Research.

South Korea said Wednesday it will allocate 23 billion won ($20.6 million) to build testing infrastructure for local producers of materials and parts for rechargeable batteries in line with its efforts to foster the sector as a new growth engine. The test center will allow small and midsized businesses to run tests on their materials used to produce battery products with high-end infrastructure, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. The ministry said it has decided to establ

South Korea's outbound shipments of pet food products soared 83.5 percent in 2020 from a year earlier on strong demand from the Asia region, data showed Wednesday. Exports of pet food products reached $67.4 million last year, jumping from $36.7 million in 2019, according to data by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs on the local pet industry. By country, Japan accounted for 36.4 percent of the total, trailed by Thailand with 26.4 percent and Vietnam with 8.4 percent. The coun