South Korea's No. 2 tech giant LG Electronics Inc. is set to join forces with U.S. Google Inc. for a smartphone with an Android-based payment system, industry sources said Thursday, commencing its struggle to catch up to rivals.LG Electronics is anticipated to showcase Google's next Nexus smartphone in October, according to the sources. While a new Nexus model comes with the latest version of the Android operating system, the upcoming edition is widely expected to come with Android Pay, a mobile

Local brokerage house Korea Investment Holdings Corp. and Daum KaKao Corp., the operator of the country's largest mobile messenger, said Wednesday that they have agreed to form a consortium for the launch of an Internet-only bank.   Korea Investment Holdings will hold a 50 percent stake in the consortium, with Daum KaKao owning 10 percent of the entity.Another tech firm whose name was not revealed, will own 30 percent of the consortium, with the remaining 10 percent to be owned by four commercia

SK hynix, South Korea’s top chip maker, said Wednesday it has agreed with U.S.-based SanDisk to end their ongoing legal battle and to extend ties on patent use. In March last year, SanDisk filed a lawsuit against SK hynix in the U.S., claiming that its former researchers had moved to the Korean chip maker and leaked confidential business information in 2008. Following the agreement, SK hynix will pay an undisclosed amount in patent fees to SanDisk and supply dynamic random access memory, or DRAM

LG Electronics Inc., South Korea's No. 2 smartphone maker, said Wednesday it will start selling its latest flip smartphone in Europe and the neighboring region this week, following its domestic release late last month. The LG Gentle will be available in Europe and subsequently in the Commonwealth of Independent States including Russia and Uzbekistan, for around 200,000 won ($171), the company said in a statement. The foldable smartphone has been sold in the same price range in South Korea from J

Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc., South Korea's top smartphone makers, still hold a strong foothold in North America with their premium lineups, despite the growing challenge from cheaper Chinese rivals, data showed Wednesday. Samsung and LG took up 32 percent and 15 percent of the market in the region in the second quarter, ranking second and third, respectively, according to the data by market tracker Strategic Analytics. When combined with the share of Apple Inc., the reigning

Samsung Electronics Co. plans to cut its output of PC dynamic random access memory chips and tap deeper into the mobile segment ahead of the release of U.S. Apple Inc.'s new iPhone models, industry sources said Wednesday.Samsung is set to reduce the shipment of standard DRAMs used in personal computers, eventually by 30 percent, reported the Taiwan-based Economic Daily News, a move apparently aimed at bolstering its mobile DRAM capability."We cannot give details on the reduction of the productio

Samsung Electronics said Monday it would create a 100 billion won ($85 million) fund for employees who had suffered from incurable diseases, including leukemia, while working at its manufacturing plants for semiconductors and displays. “Even though the exact causal relationship (of their illness) has not yet been verified, we will make all-out efforts to solve the issue promptly for the victims and their families,” the company said in a statement. Samsung has continued the compensation talks wit

Hanwha Q Cells Co., the world's leading solar cell maker, said Tuesday it will team up with Japanese trading company Marubeni Corp. to build a solar power plant in Japan's nuclear-hit Fukushima area.  Hanwha Q Cells signed a deal with Marubeni to provide 190,000 solar modules to build the 52.5-megawatt solar power plant in Fukushima prefecture by June 2017. The plant will be built on one of the most severely affected regions of the 2011 tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster to provide much-nee

The number of warrants issued by courts to confiscate user data from South Korea's top mobile messenger declined sharply in the first half of this year, a report showed Tuesday, following criticism of covert cyber surveillance by law enforcement authorities.Daum Kakao Corp., the operator of KakaoTalk, received 1,449 court orders in the January-June period to submit users' private information to the prosecution for investigative purposes, down 32 percent from the previous year, the company said i