[THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s Internet giant Naver said it would try to increase its global presence with its mobile services, including the webtoon platform, Snow, a Snapchat-like app, and V-App, a video streaming service focused on Korean pop culture.“The webtoon, Snow and V-App services have made remarkable achievement so far in the global market,” said Kim Sang-hun, CEO of the Pangyo-based company, in the second-quarter conference call on July 28.“If the company pushes further together with i

[THE INVESTOR] Electronic components firm LG Innotek said July 28 that it would invest US$ 230 million by 2018 to build a camera module factory in Haiphong, the third largest city of Vietnam.The company’s board of directors approved a new funding of US$ 20 million to be used for setting up a local branch at a meeting in Seoul on July 27. LG Innotek`s camera moduleLG Innotek will roll out camera modules for smartphones and vehicles at the new factory in Vietnam, where the monthly minimum wage is

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics is pinning high hopes on its upcoming Galaxy Note 7 smartphone with a curved screen that will debut on Aug. 2 in New York, London and Rio de Janeiro. “Like its Galaxy S7 sibling that is receiving positive market reviews, the Galaxy Note 7 will meet market expectations,” a Samsung executive said in the firm’s second-quarter conference call on July 28. Together with its high-end flagship models, the company said its budget smartphones such as the Galaxy A, J and

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics said in its second-quarter conference call on July 28 that it would for the time being focus on rolling out 10-nanometer semiconductors rather than moving onto still-fledgling 7-nanometer chips. “The 10-nanometer chip production boasts the highest efficiency and is fit for commercialization,” an official from the tech giant said in the conference call held in the morning. Samsung Electronics’ 10-nano class DRAM chips.The company added that it is ready to produc

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics said on July 28 that sales of the curved-screen Galaxy S7 Edge made up more than 50 percent of its total flagship S7 sales in the April-June period. The Korean tech giant didn’t reveal the specific sales figure of the S7 phones during the conference call on the day. Industry watchers estimate a combined 270 million S7 and its Edge variant phones have been sold in the first half of this year since their March launch. Running on the upbeat mood, Samsung has also

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics said on July 28 it has shipped about 90 million handsets in the April-June period with smartphones making up more than 80 percent of the total. Samsung’s second-quarter smartphone shipments are estimated at about 72 million units, almost doubling its archrival Apple’s iPhone shipments of 40.4 million units during the same period.The Korean tech giant unveiled the sales figure in a conference call after announcing its second-quarter earnings earlier in the day.

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics said July 28 that its operating profit increased 18 percent on-year to 8.14 trillion won (US$7.19 billion) in the April-June period on the back of strong sales of the firm’s smartphones, the Galaxy S7 and its Edge variant in particular.Quarterly revenue increased 5 percent to 50.94 trillion won from a year earlier. Samsung’s IT & Mobile Communications division, in charge of the smartphone business, posted a whopping 4.32 trillion won operating profit, up from 2

[THE INVESTOR] The world’s memory sector is sizzling as more global chipmakers are vying to take the upper hand in the development of a more advanced vertical, or 3-D NAND flash memory chip.First mass-produced by Samsung Electronics in 2013, the 3-D NAND memory, which stacks cells vertically inside for the sake of space efficiency, has gone through a technical makeover in the past three years.Samsung Electronics’ V-NAND memory chipThe first generation chip has 24 layers of cells while the second

[THE INVESTOR] LINE, the Tokyo-headquartered mobile messenger operator, said on July 27 that the company’s operating profit improved in the April-June period thanks to strong sales in its ad and media content businesses.Announcing its first earnings result on the day since its IPO in Tokyo and New York this month, the company said it logged 8 billion yen (US$75.74 million) in operating profit, up from an operating loss of 2.4 billion yen in the second quarter of last year. It also recorded 33.9

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics has narrowed its operating profit margin gap with archrival Apple, with the figure reducing to the lowest-ever 7.62 percent in the second quarter. This is the first time that the gap has narrowed to a single-digit percentage point between the world’s top two smartphone-makers. Koh Dong-jin, chief of Samsung Electronics‘ mobile business unit, holding Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge phones. Samsung ElectronicsAccording to its earnings guidance, Samsung posted 8.1 trillion

[THE INVESTOR] All eyes are now on who will take the reins in the upcoming era of organic light-emitting diode, which is expected to bring a generational change to mobile devices and the whole IT sector. The smartphone OLED realm has been a stronghold of Samsung Display whose market share reached 97.7 percent in the Jan-March period, according to market research firm IHS.Among the runner-ups in the segment are LG display of South Korea and AUO of Taiwan whose market share stood at 0.9 percent an

[THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s display maker LG Display saw its operating profit drop 91 percent on-year in the April-June period, due largely to fierce competition in the global display market. The Seoul-headquartered company posted operating profit of 4.4 billion won (US$3.88 million) while its revenue came in at 585 billion won, down 13 percent compared to the same period in 2015.The TV and smartphone displays together account for more than half of the quarterly revenue -- 39 percent and 27 per

[THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s display manufacturer LG Display announced on July 27 that it would invest around 2 trillion won (US$1.80 billion) to build manufacturing facilities for plastic organic light-emitting diode displays, a type of flexible display mostly used for mobile devices like smartphones. The company will add the new facilities with the monthly production capacity of 15,000 sheets of the sixth-generation plastic OLED -- measured 1,500 millimeters by 1,859 millimeters -- at the firm

[THE INVESTOR] Online game developer Nexon said on July 26 that the number of downloads for the global version of its mobile role-playing game “HIT” has exceeded the 3 million mark since its debut less than a month ago. First released in Korea in November 2015, the global version was launched in 140 nations, excluding China and Japan, on July 7. The mobile app has been included in the top 10 best-selling paid mobile apps in Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Vietnam. Nexon has recently been in the

[THE INVESTOR] SK Telecom announced on July 26 that it is officially withdrawing the merger plan between its IPTV unit SK Broadband and the nation’s No. 1 cable TV operator CJ HelloVision. The announcement comes after the Fair Trade Commission, the state antitrust regulator, disapproved the 1 trillion won deal on July 18, citing monopoly concerns that could further strengthen SK Telecom’s dominant market position in the highly competitive paid TV market. “SK Telecom has notified CJ HelloVision t

[THE INVESTOR] Korea has decided to opt for ATSC 3.0, a technology standard in the US for ultra-high definition broadcasting, over the European standard DVB-T2, the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said July 26.Most of the TVs made by Korean TV makers including Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are based on the European standard, a relatively outdated technology compared to the US counterpart.Samsung Electronics’ 105-inch UHD TV / Samsung ElectronicsAs a result, many of those wh

[THE INVESTOR] JTNet, an operator of online and offline payment services, has attracted 20 billion won (US$17.5 million) of funding from BNW Investment and Zenitas Investment, the company said on July 26. The Korean company under Yellow Mobile’s online-to-offline business affiliate Yellow O2O, offers value-added network and payment gateway services -- core technologies behind credit card transactions.Founded in 1993, the company joined Yellow Mobile, a start-up giant consisting of dozens of diff

[THE INVESTOR] The servers of leading Korean e-commerce firm Interpark were hacked, compromising its customers’ personal information including email addresses, and phone numbers, according to news reports July 26.A group of hackers, who accessed the firm’s servers with overseas IPs, stole around 10.3 million pieces of personal data in May. A notice posted on the Interpark internet homepageThe hackers reportedly sent emails with malicious codes to Interpark employees and got access to the sensiti

[THE INVESTOR] A series of legal complaints have been filed against Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee after video clips showing him allegedly buying sex services were revealed last week, according to news reports on July 25.A man in his 50s lodged a complaint on July 22 at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in Seoul, asking for an investigation into the sex scandal.Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-heeThe case has been transferred to the Seoul District Prosecutors’ Office. A civic group h

[THE INVESTOR] LG Electronics said it would spend 30-50 percent more on-year for research and development into key components of washing machines and air conditioners to maintain its competitiveness in the home appliance market. “The motor and compressor plays a vital role in our home appliance business, so we will invest accordingly,” said Park Jung-hyun, vice president of LG’s compressor and motor business unit at a press meeting in South Gyeongsang Province last week.  LG Electronics employee