[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics’ mobile payment solution Samsung Pay has sailed past the milestone of 100 million transactions in the global market since its release a year ago in Korea.Since its first release in the Korean market, the mobile solution has been launched in a total of seven global markets, including the US, China, Spain and Brazil.The tech giant has not unveiled the exact transaction volume in the global markets, but it said the transaction volume in Korea alone had exceeded 2

[THE INVESTOR] Preinstalled smartphone apps have been a bone of contention since the early days of smartphones. The apps fitted on smartphones regardless of consumers’ preferences have often faced flak for creating a range of nuisances, such as unnecessary consumption of power and storage space and eliminating the right of consumer choice. Google, which dominates the world’s smartphone operating system market, has been bashed for requiring global phone-makers to preinstall a suite of the firm’s

[THE INVESTOR] Chinese internet giant Tencent said Aug. 22 that it would expand its mobile payment service WeChat Pay in Korea in a bid to better cater to the increasing number of Chinese travelers to the nation. “Korea is one of the favorite destinations for Chinese travelers. Tencent is pleased to be able to expand its payment service in the Korean market and will provide better services for Chinese visitors with WeChat Pay,” said Lilian Huang, director of Tencent’s business operations.  Lilia

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics’ smartphone sales in the April-June period outgunned the combined sales of Apple of the US and Huawei of China, according to market research firm Garner on Aug. 19.Samsung sold 76.7 million smartphones, accounting for 22.3 percent of the global market, during the three months, while Apple sold 44.4 million units, or 12.9 percent, and Huawei sold 30.7 million, or 8.9 percent. Samsung Galaxy Note 7The three companies took the top three spots in the global smartph

[THE INVESTOR] Tokyo-headquartered game developer Nexon will set up its exhibition booths in its largest scale ever for the G-Star game show, which will kick off Nov. 17, according to the firm on Aug. 19.The game company said it would install 400 booths at its exhibition venue during the event to be held in Busan. They will feature the firm’s existing and new game titles. Nexon has participated in Korea’s largest game trade show for 12 consecutive years.In the previous show in 2015, the firm unv

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Group affiliates are enjoying the halo effect of its crown jewel Samsung Electronics’ recent stock rally. Some saw their stock prices soar more than 30 percent in less than two months.Among them are Samsung C&T, a construction and trading business and the group’s de facto holding firm; Samsung SDS, the information and communications technology solutions company; Samsung Electro-Mechanics, the parts unit, and Samsung SDI, the battery-maker. Samsung C&T’s shares jumped 33.2

[THE INVESTOR] The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said Aug. 18 that the ministry and concerned government ministries and agencies would make the final decision on Aug. 24 on whether to allow internet giant Google to export Korean geographical data abroad.Officials from the ministries and agencies, including the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Defense, will participate in a joint meeting in which they will decide whether to al

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics unveiled its plan to roll out next-generation mobile memory storage systems at a semiconductor forum in Seoul on Aug. 17.The tech giant said that it would roll out an external universal flash storage card, dubbed UFS Card V2.0, and UFS 3.0, an internal memory chip. Both memory products, which can respectively transfer 1.2 gigabytes and 2.4 gigabytes of data per second, are two times faster than their preceding products, the UFS V1.0 and UFS 2.0.  Samsung Electr

[THE INVESTOR] For LG Electronics, designing and producing its own chips for mobile devices has long been a dream, so much so the tech firm has even been rumored to be acquiring a chip company, though those rumors failed to materialize.LG has recently decided to collaborate with Intel of the US, a rival to Samsung Electronics and Qualcomm in the semiconductors sector, in producing its own chips.At the Intel Developer Forum 2016, an annual semiconductor conference, in San Francisco, Intel and the

[THE INVESTOR] SK hynix unveiled new memory storage systems, the universal flash storage 2.1 and nonvolatile DIMM, at the Intel Developer Forum 2016, an annual conference of the chip industry in San Francisco, the company said on Aug. 17. The UFS 2.1 memory chip, based on 3-D NAND flash memory and controller technologies, comes in 32, 64 and 128 gigabytes and is used for mobile devices, including smartphones. The NVDIMM is used for data servers.The Pangyo-headquartered chipmaker said it recently

[THE INVESTOR] Biometric sensor developer CrucialTec said Aug. 17 that it has completed the development of iris scanning modules and plans to mass produce the products next year.Having cooperated with optical technology firm Micro Actuator to develop the iris scanning module late last year, CrucialTec has recently approached its prospective corporate customers in recent months, the company said.A smartphone camera fitted with CrucialTec’s biometric module could alternate between being a camera f

[THE INVESTOR] Tech giant Samsung Electronics saw its market share in the global large-size display panel market decrease to a record low since 2014 in the first half this year, according to its regulatory filing released Aug. 16.Citing a report from market research firm IHS, the tech firm said it had 16.7 percent market share in the six-month period, compared to the 21.1 percent and 20.9 percent of market share the firm posted in 2015 and 2014, respectively.  A Samsung Electronics worker checks

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics has reportedly been running an investment firm in the semiconductor sector in San Jose, California.The investment firm, Samsung Oak Holdings, was incorporated on June 6 in the area, but its business purpose had not publicly been disclosed. Samsung Electronics workers pose with a NAND flash memory chip wafer at the firm’s factory complex in Xian, China.A Samsung official was quoted by a Korean news outlet as saying “Samsung Oak Holdings is a holding firm that ma

[THE INVESTOR] SK Holdings C&C, an IT solutions provider, said Aug. 16 that it would cooperate with Japanese factory automation system developer Daifuku to infiltrate the Chinese market.The two partners recently signed a memorandum of understanding to develop smart factory solutions, the Korean firm said. The head office of SK Holdings C&CFounded in 1937, the Japanese company raked in more than 33.6 million yen (US$335,000) in sales in 2015 and currently runs 40 global branches and factories aro

[THE INVESTOR] Tech giant Samsung Electronics is pushing itself to the limit to take the lead in the global mobile payment solutions market.It recently beefed up the security of its mobile payment solution with the iris scanner fitted in the Galaxy Note 7 and had the Samsung Pay software of the Galaxy Gear S2 smartwatch updated to be compatible with both near-field communication and traditional magnetic terminals.As has been reported since last year, Samsung is also said to be planning to add a