Samsung Electronics said Wednesday that its ActiveWash washing machine has hit the 1.5 million mark in global sales since its launch in February last year. The ActiveWash is a top-load washing machine with a separate sink for prewashing. It has been launched in 33 countries worldwide. The sales figure means 4,100 unit sales every day – Samsung’s fastest-selling washing machine, the company said. During the same period, the product sold more than 300,000 units in Korea alone. In the U.S., Samsung

The nation’s largest steelmaker POSCO is tightening its belt in a desperate effort to restore profitability across its affiliates amid a supply glut and faltering global demand for steel. In an annual executive reshuffle on Monday, the group said it had cut the number of executives by a whopping 30 percent to 259, compared to 359 last year.  The group also reduced the number of offices by 22 percent to combine their overlapped tasks and improve efficiency overall. The decision came a week after

LG Electronics on Tuesday unveiled online its first-ever Super Bowl ad, featuring actor Liam Neeson as a “mysterious man from the future.”The 60-second commercial, which will air during the Feb. 7 Super Bowl matchup on CBS, aims to promote the company’s flagship organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, TV.  In the ad, produced by the famous father-son team of Ridley and Jake Scott, Neeson travels to present day to help his younger self -- played by the actor’s real-life son Michael Neeson -- intro

WeMakePrice, one of the nation’s top three daily-deal sites, said Tuesday the number of its unique visitors during the first three weeks of January outpaced those of rivals Coupang and Ticket Monster. Considering the tight race among the three companies in the fast-growing social commerce market, topping the visitor number is an important indicator of the site’s competitiveness, a company official said.  WeMakePrice CEO Park Eun-sangThe company added it posted a 50 percent growth in gross mercha

Shares of Samsung SDI and LG Chem continued to struggle Monday for almost a month, with concerns growing over China’s subsidy suspension for electric buses powered by their batteries. LG Chem shares closed at 289,000 won ($240), down 2.20 percent from Friday, while Samsung SDI shares closed nearly flat at 93,500 won after fluctuations. In its latest move to gradually scale back subsidies for EVs, the Chinese government recently decided not to give subsidies for NCM or nickel-manganese-cobalt che

After another failed attempt last week, doubts are growing over the Korean government’s search for a fourth telecom carrier in Korea. Aiming to spur competition and lower service fees, the government has sought to pick a fourth player in the telecom market that has long been dominated by three big companies -- SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus -- since 2010.  But the latest seventh attempt ended in vain again Friday as the three bidders -- Sejong Telecom, K Mobile and Quantum Mobile -- failed to come

LG Electronics said Tuesday its car parts business division swung to a profit in the fourth quarter for the first time since it started releasing its separate earnings last year. 　The company said the Vehicle Component division, which produces parts for automotive infotainment systems, posted 520.4 billion won ($432 million) in sales and 9.7 billion won in operating profits in the October-December period.A company logo is displayed at the LG Electronics headquarters in Seoul (Yonhap)　LG establis

Samsung SDI shareholders on Monday agreed to spin off the company’s chemicals business into a new affiliate called SDI Chemical, that will be sold to Lotte Chemical within the first half of this year. The battery-making unit of Samsung Group said it will focus more on its flagship business to cater to electric vehicles. Samsung SDI CEO Cho Nam-seong told shareholders the company would invest 3 trillion won ($2.5 billion) into the electric vehicle battery business over the next five years.The sha

Samsung Electronics on Monday said that Haier’s recent purchase of General Electric’s home appliance business would have a limited impact on its businesses in the U.S. and globally. “We see no immediate threat. Our strategy in the U.S. market is different from those of Haier and GE,” said Samsung’s home appliance chief Seo Byung-sam at a new product launch event held at the Seoul headquarters. According to industry sources, the Korean tech giant, as well as its local rival LG Electronics, had tr

SK Telecom said Sunday it has teamed up with Cisco Systems International, the U.S. networking giant, to develop new solutions for the Internet of Things technology that connects all machines via the Web. The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding at SKT’s Seoul headquarters on Friday.  The new solutions would combine SKT’s ThingPlug, an IoT platform that allows different devices and mobile apps to work together, and Cisco’s infrastructure application technology Fog Computing that off

Pantech, the nation’s smallest smartphone-maker, which found a new owner while on the verge of bankruptcy last year, is poised to return to the market with a new phone in the summer. The new phone, the first new model since the Vega Pop-up Note phablet in November 2014, aims to target the fast-growing budget-phone market, the company’s CEO Moon Ji-wook said Friday. “This is the right timing to enter the budget phone market. We will be betting on phones that big companies such as Samsung and LG w

Expectations are high for French ad giant Publicis Groupe’s rumored purchase of a controlling stake in Cheil Worldwide, Samsung Group’s advertising agency.According to news reports and industry sources Monday, Publicis, one of the world’s top three ad companies, is considering acquiring a 30-percent stake in Cheil, which has a market value of $1.9 billion. Publicis and Cheil have not yet released respective official statements about the reports, but industry watchers see their partnership as ver

A suicide bomber detonated a bomb in the heart of Istanbul’s historic district on Tuesday, killing 10 foreigners _ most of them German tourists _ and wounding 15 other people in the latest in a string of attacks by the Islamic extremists targeting Westerners.The blast, just steps from the historic Blue Mosque and a former Byzantine church in the city’s storied Sultanahmet district, was the first by IS to target Turkey’s vital tourism sector, although IS militants have struck with deadly effect e

Samsung Electronics promoted David Eun, executive vice president and head of the Global Innovation Center, the company’s start-up accelerator based in Silicon Valley, to president, in a move that was effective Jan. 1.  “It’s a signal from Samsung that the company is committed to software services,” he said of his recent promotion last week. Eun, 47, has become the youngest president at Samsung. He joined the company four year ago. Prior to that, he worked at AOL and Google. Over the past few yea

According to Chinese zodiac, 2016 is supposed to be the Year of the Monkey. Moreover, people born in the monkey years (1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004 and 2016) are said to be smart, lively and quick-witted like forever-playful simians. With the Lunar New Year starting on Feb. 8, business leaders born in these years are also gaining fresh attention. In particular, several CEOs were born in the year 1968 and are called “Earth Monkeys.” The 48-year-old Earth Monkeys are said to be honest,

Dec. 9, 2015 was a big day for South Korea’s top two conglomerates -- Samsung and Hyundai Motor. Samsung announced it would set up a new team dedicated to car parts for infotainment systems and self-driving cars, while Hyundai said it would start developing automotive chips through its own electronics unit.Technological convergence across industries has become an increasing trend in recent years, with the automotive sector becoming a fierce battlefield for tech firms and carmakers in the era of

Samsung Group is considering selling off Samsung C&T shares owned by Samsung SDI to its bio technology partners, possibly global pharmaceutical companies, The Herald Business reported Monday. The report came after South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission on Sunday said the group’s cross-shareholding among affiliates was strengthened following the Sept. 1 merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries. Citing the nation’s antitrust rules that prohibit conglomerates from creating a new circular owners

South Korea’s antitrust watchdog on Sunday said that the recent merger of Samsung affiliates has tightened cross-shareholdings among group companies, ordering its battery unit to reduce its stake in the holding company. “The number of cross-shareholding links may have been reduced to seven from 10 following the merger of Samsung C&T with Cheil Industries (on Sept. 1),” the Fair Trade Commission said in a statement. “But we have found the ties have been further strengthened.”The current antitrust