Samsung SDI’s second-quarter operating profit jumped nearly 27-fold compared to a year earlier, showing a solid recovery trend after the battery explosion crisis in 2016, according to the company’s earnings announcement Monday. The battery maker posted 2.25 trillion won in sales and 152.8 billion won in operating profit for the April to June period, the company said in a regulatory filing. The operating profit skyrocketed from 5.5 billion won in the second quarter of last year, when the company

The South Korean government will invest 1.5 trillion won ($1.34 billion) in developing new technologies and creating a manufacturing hub for next-generation chips in order to keep its leading position being sought by China, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy on Monday. The Industry Ministry will make the investment for the next 10 years together with the Ministry of Science and ICT, titling the project “Next-Generation Intelligent Semiconductor Technology Development Project

SUWON, Gyeonggi Province -- Around 1,600 middle school students on Friday enrolled in summer camps opened simultaneously at six universities across the country. The Dream Class camp, in its seventh year being run by Samsung Electronics, is one of the pet projects of Samsung Group heir Lee Jae-yong, who seems officially back at the helm of the biggest South Korean conglomerate. Lee made surprise visits to the camps in 2015 and 2016 with reportedly deep interest in the educational outreach program

South Korea’s leading automaker Hyundai Motor Company and its 51,000-member trade union pounded out an agreement on an increase of 45,000 won ($40) in basic monthly pay for this year without the negotiation leading to a strike, the company said Friday. It is the first time in eight years for the automaker to reach an agreement between labor and management before the summer holiday season. Some 63 percent of 42,046 workers who cast a ballot in a vote held Thursday agreed to accept this year’s wag

SK hynix, South Korea’s second-largest chipmaker, said Friday the company will construct a new semiconductor fabrication plant at its headquarters in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, in response to growing demand for memory chips. The announcement was made a day after the company reported all-time high earnings in the second quarter. Construction will begin at the end of this year on a 53,000-square-meter site on the company’s Icheon campus with a schedule to be completed by October 2020.  SK hynix's

SK hynix, South Korea’s second-largest memory chip provider, achieved the largest-ever second-quarter profit this year, owing to unwavering growth of demand for memory chips. The firm is forecast to continue benefiting from favorable market conditions in the second half of the year, according to its earnings announcement Thursday. The Korean memory chip maker posted 10.37 trillion won ($9.25 billion) in sales and 5.57 trillion won in operating profit for the April-June period, jumping 55 percent

In some East Asian countries, a person’s blood type is believed to determine personality traits including temperament and compatibility with others. However, the scientific community dismisses the blood type personality theory, citing a lack of evidence. They say blood types are maintained as a classification system for safe transfusions of blood in emergency situations.Known as the ABO blood group system, different blood types were first discovered by Austrian Physician Karl Landsteiner in 1900

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics has beaten China’s Xiaomi in the Indian smartphone market share in the second quarter of this year, according to a research firm Wednesday. Samsung accounted for 29 percent in terms of smartphone shipments in the Indian market during the April-une period, slightly outpacing Xiaomi at 28 percent, showed data by Counterpoint Research. The Korean smartphone maker ceded its leading position in the market to the Chinese player in the fourth quarter of last year for t

South Korea’s leading mobile carrier KT unveiled what it called the world’s first blockchain-based commercial network on Tuesday, and announced its aim to create the most trusted network for individual users and businesses. In telecommunications, blockchain technology can be used for efficient and secure data distribution and transactions, said Seo Young-il, head of the KT Blockchain Center at KT’s Institute of Convergence Technology, who has been working for more than three years to develop suc

Samsung Electronics is focusing on making the second edition of the digital assistant Bixby more conversable on upcoming flagship products ranging from wearables and smartphones to TV and other home appliances in the second half of the year, according to the industry on Monday. Anticipations are high on the expected unveiling of Bixby 2.0 with the Galaxy Note 9 on Aug. 9, as Samsung spent nearly one year and six months on improving the artificial intelligence platform’s accuracy in voice recogni

SUWON, Gyeonggi Province -- On the second floor of the R4 building on the Samsung Digital City campus in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, a room is filled with prototypes of micro light-emitting diode displays set for market release in the coming months. The lineup of exhibited prototypes includes The Wall, first unveiled at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in January, which is the next generation of smart displays using micro LED technology. Micro LED displays consist of arrays of microscopic LEDs f

No more clumsiness when trying to find a light controller or favorite TV channel while starting your vacation at a sleek hotel. Instead, just say the words: “Genie-ya, turn on CNN.” “Genie-ya” is the wake word for KT’s GiGA Genie artificial intelligence platform. AI is starting to enter some of the newest hotels in Seoul, including Novotel Ambassador Seoul Dongdaemun Hotels & Residences by AccorHotels and L’Escape Hotel by Shinsegae, with a new mission to build “ICT hotels.”Novotel Ambassador Do

GS Group Chairman Huh Chang-soo on Wednesday called for balance in the group’s business portfolio and its ecosystem for growth in a rapidly changing environment. At a quarterly meeting attended by around 150 C-level executives and senior officials across GS affiliates, Huh emphasized both astuteness and balance in terms of discovering new businesses and making investments. “We should always closely monitor changes in the market and our customers, and be bold in investing in new businesses for th

Samsung Electronics on Tuesday kept silent about a post that went viral, supposedly showing an accidental reveal of its upcoming flagship Galaxy Note 9 smartphone by its smartphone business chief Koh Dong-jin.  Koh was photographed using a smartphone that appeared to be the new Note 9 phone -- slated for release at its Unpacked event on Aug. 9 in New York -- at a public event in Wuhan, China, on Monday. An image posted by Twitter user Eldho Varghese showed Koh using the S Pen on the supposed Not