KT&G reports record cigarette sales in Q3

KT&G, the nation’s largest tobacco company, said Thursday its cigarette sales hit a new record in the third quarter, largely buoyed by overseas sales. In the July-September period, the company reported 1.04 trillion won ($780 million) in cigarette sales, up 7.7 percent from a year ago and the highest-ever quarterly figure. Operating profit in cigarette sales also soared 23.6 percent to 333 billion won. Overseas sales made up about one-third of its total cigarette sales, worth 419.7 bil

Nov. 7, 2024

Chipmakers urged to leverage AI edge in tackling uncertainties

Donald Trump's second presidency is unsettling the chip industry globally, after the outspoken leader had publicly threatened during his campaign to cut subsidies for chipmakers and raise tariffs on foreign firms. South Korea, home to the world’s top two memory chip-makers, is no exception. Experts suggest that Korea should leverage its strengths in artificial intelligence chips and further bolster ties with the new US administration. One of the imminent concerns is the possibility of

Nov. 7, 2024

LG wins top patent award for AR navigation tech

LG Electronics received the top recognition from the country’s patent agency for its advanced vehicle augmented reality technology used to guide drivers on complex and unfamiliar roads on Wednesday. At this year’s Patent Technology Awards hosted by the Korean Intellectual Property Office, LG Electronics has been chosen as the winner of the grand prize, the King Sejong Award, for its patent on vehicle AR-based navigation. “We expect our AR solutions will innovate driving experie

Nov. 6, 2024

Miracell showcases stem cell tech at Spain conference

South Korean stem cell research company Miracell showcased its stem cell extraction system, Smart M-Cell, during the IV Congreso Semdor Valencia conference in Spain last month. Hosted by the Spanish Pain Society, the annual conference brought together pain management experts from around the world to explore effective solutions for preventing and treating pain. This year’s event, held Oct. 24-26, invited doctors from Spain, the UK, the US, the Netherlands, Greece and Italy. During the confe

Nov. 6, 2024

KT unveils world’s first 8K IPTV set-top box

South Korean telecom carrier KT Corp. on Tuesday released the world’s first artificial intelligence IPTV set-top box that supports advanced 8K resolution with on-device AI capabilities. The company said the Genie TV set-top box 4 is the first IPTV set-top box globally equipped with an 8K UHD chipset. It offers four times the number of pixels of a 4K UHD screen and 16 times that of a full HD screen. “With a 50 percent performance improvement in its CPU and a dedicated NPU, it optimi

Nov. 5, 2024

Global scholars discuss AI’s future at Samsung forum

Global scholars and artificial intelligence experts discussed the future of AI, semiconductors, and the use of the technology in everyday life at this year's Samsung AI Forum that kicked off Monday. During the two-day event, renowned academics including Turing Award winners Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun, and AMD Chief Technology Officer Joseph Macri, shared their research advancements in AI and computer engineering. “AI is changing our lives at a surprising speed, and as it gets strong

Nov. 5, 2024

SK Telecom unveils AI assistant Aster for global users

SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest wireless carrier by membership, on Tuesday unveiled its new artificial intelligence-powered personal assistant Aster for global markets. Designed as an agentic AI, Aster goes beyond simple question-and-answer or search functions. It engages users in an interactive dialogue to understand their intentions, and make plans and perform tasks on their behalf. According to the company, the AI agent’s capabilities in planning, task management and quick respo

Nov. 5, 2024

MCCAAi shows AI prowess through product placement solution, context-aware generative content

MCCAAi Co., Ltd. demonstrated its technology through a multimedia work entitled "The Beginning of the Return," created by its generative AI solution MOAI, during the inaugural AI Content Festival that wrapped up on Saturday at COEX in southern Seoul. Produced entirely through generative AI, "The Beginning of the Return" incorporates images, voices, music and other elements to showcase the capability of the technology to create high-quality content. The piece was created at th

Nov. 5, 2024

SK hynix unveils 2025 shipment plans for most up-to-date HBM chip

SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung unveiled the company’s plan to start mass production of the industry's most up-to-date high-bandwidth memory chips early next year. “We anticipated that the market for the 16-layer product will begin to open (the sixth-generation) HBM4,” he said in a keynote speech at SK AI Summit 2024 in Seoul on Monday. "We are developing the new product to ensure technical stability.” The 16-layer, 48-gigabyte, fifth-generation HBM3E chip boasts the

Nov. 4, 2024

SK chief vows to tackle AI bottleneck along with Nvidia, TSMC

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won renewed his commitment to building a robust artificial intelligence ecosystem and vowed to overcome bottlenecks in the process with AI pioneers and key partners Nvidia and TSMC. Speaking at SK AI Summit 2024, held in Seoul on Monday, Chey listed a number of difficulties the burgeoning AI industry faces and reaffirmed his ties with tech leaders, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. In prerecorded videos, the CEOs deli

Nov. 4, 2024

Korean luxury e-boutique Jente launches global service

South Korean luxury e-boutique Jente has launched a global service to spur its business expansion overseas. The company said Monday the website is now available for shoppers in North America, Asia and Europe, with plans for expansion in the Middle East by 2025. Established in 2020, Jente has gained traction in the nation’s competitive luxury market by directly sourcing luxury goods from boutiques, ensuring authenticity and exclusivity. In 2022, its sales reached 48.8 billion won ($35.6 mil

Nov. 4, 2024

Samsung CEO calls for unrivaled technological leadership

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman and co-CEO Han Jong-hee told employees Friday to fully commit to strengthening their key technological leadership to secure uncompromising quality competitiveness. “Without change, neither innovation nor growth is possible," he said during a joint commemorative speech delivered at the tech giant’s 55th anniversary celebration in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province. “Let’s proactively secure technologies that do not yet exist in the world, techn

Nov. 1, 2024

Samsung vows to boost AI chip sales after earnings miss

Samsung Electronics said Thursday it will focus on producing high-value chips and is ready to supply the cutting-edge AI chips high in demand after announcing disappointing quarterly earnings. The company also hinted it is making strides to supply its cutting-edge HBM3E chips to Nvidia, which controls some 80 percent of the world's AI chips, and said it aims to mass produce the next HBM4 in the second half of next year. “There was a delay in commercializing HBM3E chips, but we have ma

Oct. 31, 2024

Mobile carriers raise severance pay to slim down workforce

Mobile carriers are strengthening their severance packages to encourage early retirement amid efforts to renew their business portfolio and restructure stagnant workforce. Kicking off voluntary redundancy, KT Corp., the country's second-largest telecommunication company, recently raised the maximum severance pay for voluntary redundancy, from 330 million won ($238,000) to 430 million won. Earlier this month, the mobile carrier decided to establish two new affiliates, KT OSP and KT P&M,

Oct. 30, 2024

TGS seeks to expand e-commerce presence in Philippines

South Korean retail and finance company TGS Holdings announced Tuesday that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Philippines-based Glyphstudios to expand e-commerce and mobile payment services in the Southeast Asian market. As part of the agreement, TGS Holdings will launch a subsidiary called Woori Ventures Group to oversee its e-commerce operations in the Philippines. This deal, finalized last Wednesday with one of the Philippines’ largest mobile services and content provider

Oct. 30, 2024

Leadership reshuffle looms as Samsung struggles to remain atop

Samsung Electronics, facing challenges from its smaller rivals, is expected to carry out a major personnel reshuffle later this year, according to industry sources Monday. The world’s largest maker of memory chips and smartphones has been battling growing competition at home and abroad. When it comes to artificial intelligence chips, for instance, it has been outpaced by its crosstown rival SK hynix, as it failed to secure an earlier edge. “Samsung’s losses in HBM and foundry a

Oct. 28, 2024

SK chief assumes leadership of APEC CEO Summit

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, who doubles as chair of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, will preside over the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, the largest gathering of business leaders in the region which is to be held next year in Korea, the business lobby said Sunday, upon the launch of the preparatory committee of the upcoming event. The APEC CEO Summit will be held on the sidelines of the annual APEC Summit, where 21 heads of state and some 1,000 businesspeople join. Gye

Oct. 27, 2024

[Contribution] Future-oriented partnership between Korea, Singapore

By Lee Seong-woo, Vice president of Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry Living up to its reputation as a “small but mighty” country, Singapore has been an economic hub of Asia and is home to the Asian headquarters of many global companies. Its business-friendly investment environment, talented workforce and strategic location have made it a center of the Asian economy. The government of Singapore offers nondiscriminatory investment incentives to both local and foreign companies,

Oct. 24, 2024

Samsung mobile chief upbeat on Galaxy S24 sales

Samsung Electronics's mobile business chief Roh Tae-moon has pinned high hopes on the latest flagship Galaxy S24 series to drive up the company's smartphone business this year overall. Speaking to the employees in a regular town hall meeting on Wednesday, Roh reiterated the company's goal of creating an "ecosystem of Galaxy AI" to introduce the artificial intelligence model to all of its mobile devices, according to industry sources. "Galaxy has led the way into the

Oct. 24, 2024

SK hynix reports earnings surprise in Q3 on AI chip boom

SK hynix, the world’s second-largest memory chip maker by revenue, said Thursday it logged all-time high profit, sales and net income in the July-September period this year, riding on the robust demand for its artificial intelligence chips. The company reported a quarterly operating profit of 7.03 trillion won ($5.1 billion), compared with a loss of 1.79 trillion won a year ago. The figure is higher than the consensus of 6.76 trillion won by local analysts provided by market intelligence F

Oct. 24, 2024