SK Telecom said Monday it has permanently ended its 25-year-old 2G mobile service. The top mobile carrier here received the go-ahead from the ICT Ministry last month and started to switch off the 2G service in smaller cities including Sejong since July 6. Seoul was the last city that it shut down the service. Subscribers of SKT’s 2G service in Korea can no longer receive and make calls or send text messages. According to the company a majority of the company’s 2G users -- around

Samsung Electronics said Monday it has clinched multiple supply deals in the UK, in an apparent move to push harder into the home interior and housing market. The South Korean tech giant recently inked a deal to supply 1,000 Air Dressers -- its wardrobe care machine -- with Lux Group. The British firm is a well-known interior design and construction company specializing in high-end mansions, and also manufactures home and dining room furniture. It is one of the major customers that Samsun

KT Skylife Co., a satellite broadcasting affiliate of local telecom giant KT Corp., was chosen as the preferred bidder to buy cable TV operator Hyundai HCN Co., the company said Monday, beating out rival telecom operators. The country's three major mobile carriers, including SK Telecom Co. and LG Uplus Corp, have been racing to acquire the cable TV operator which has been put up for sale since late March, as they look to strengthen their presence in the local pay TV market. The acquisition dat

Fiat Chrysler Korea confirmed Monday that President Pablo Rosso has been suspended following allegations of sexual harassment, verbal abuse and assault.  To ensure the integrity of the investigation is upheld, Pablo Rosso has been temporarily suspended from his duties as managing director of FCA Korea, the automaker said. "FCA does not tolerate any form of harassment, abuse or discrimination of our employees or business partners. It is the company’s policy to both immediately

The International Vaccine Institute, a Seoul-based independent nonprofit agency, said Monday that LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo has personally donated 1 billion won ($836,120) to develop therapies for the new coronavirus. Koo hopes his donation would help speed up the development of vaccines to tackle the unprecedented pandemic, the organization said. The donation will be used to study methods to prevent infections, improving the human immune response to COVID-19 vaccines and for strengthen

Yuhan and AbClon have joined the list of companies that are in the race to develop a therapy for COVID-19. Although they are still in the animal-testing stage, they have identified a multifariously adaptive candidate for COVID-19 therapy which they plan to begin testing on humans before the year-end. Since February, AbClon had been running its Novel Epitope Screening Technology platform to identify antibody candidates for the epidemic. The company has identified 20 antibodies that wholly cuts

Samsung Heavy Industries said Monday it has become the first shipbuilder to seek approval for its 3D model-based ships from American Bureau of Shipping. ABS sets standards for safety and excellence as one of the world‘s leading ship classification organizations. The South Korean shipbuilder said it began using the design techniques since 2016 but has taken an extra step for approval from ABS. “Shipbuilders must obtain approval from a classification society for the design of ship

The employment rate for people with disabilities stood at 34.9 percent -- less than half the ratio for people without a disability -- according to data from the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Statistics Korea. The portion of employed workers with disabilities was calculated based on the total people with disabilities being 2.61 million as of 2019, which accounted for 5.1 percent of the entire Korean population. Compared to the disabled group, the employment rate for normal people was 60

Nearly two-thirds of major listed businesses in South Korea reported forecast-beating results in the second quarter of the year despite the coronavirus pandemic, a market tracker said Monday. According to an analysis of 33 major corporations by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency, 66 percent of them, or 21 companies, posted earnings that beat market estimates. Of them, 12 pulled off earnings surprises as their results exceeded market expectations by 10 percent or more

Duty-free sales rose for the second straight month in June, but their sales still remained half of pre-pandemic figures, industry data showed Monday. Combined sales at duty-free shops in South Korea reached 1.11 trillion won ($923 million) in June, up 9.3 percent from a month earlier, according to the Korea Duty Free Shops Association. It marked the second straight month of gains since the figure fell below 1 trillion won for the first time in four years in April. Local duty-free operators w

South Korea's auto output sank nearly 20 percent to an 11-year low in the first half of the year due to the coronavirus outbreak, industry data showed Monday. Industry leader Hyundai Motor Co. and four other automakers produced 1.63 million vehicles in the January-June period, down 19.8 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association (KAMA). It was the lowest figure since the 1.53 million units produced in the first half of 2009. The sha

HDC Hyundai Development Co. on Sunday called for an additional round of due diligence on Asiana Airlines as it reaffirmed its interest to close the $2.2 billion deal to take over the country’s second-largest full-service airline. However, this move is casting doubts over the successful closure of the mega-deal to acquire Asiana considering the aggravating financial situation of the airline amid the protracted COVID-19 impact on the aviation industry. The midsized construction unit of H

INJE, Gangwon Province -- There are no remarkable changes to the exterior, but the revamped version of the Renault Samsung Motors flagship midsized sedan SM6 does appear to have been “reborn with a new heart,” as the automaker describes it. Ambitiously presenting the face-lifted model of the SM6 last week, Renault Samsung Motors invited reporters to the Inje Speedium, a 3.91-kilometer circuit in Gangwon Province, on July 16 to test-drive the car on the track and nearby winding roa

South Korea’s antitrust watchdog said Friday it has decided to impose a fine of 970 million won ($808,000) on Hyundai Heavy Industries for misappropriating technical data from a subcontractor. The Fair Trade Commission said HHI “forcibly obtained” the technical data of pistons for its diesel engine from a subcontractor. HHI had maintained a close partnership with the company for over two decades in its move to localize key components, the watchdog explained. It also did not

Amid an overall slump in the retail industry in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, retailer chain Homplus is speeding up its asset securitization plan to sell physical stores in order to secure liquidity. On Friday, Hompeplus said it has decided to securitize a store branch in Daejeon, one week after the retailer announced plans to sell another branch in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province. The company’s move comes after it recorded the net loss of 532.2 billion won ($442.8 million) during the pe