[THE INVESTOR] Korea’s leading media giant CJ E&M has been persistently pushing to tap into the global show business to develop a new business model.And “Kinky Boots,” a Broadway musical, is one of its latest and most successful efforts. CJ E&M, which has participated in the production of the musical since 2012, is responsible for bringing the energetic stage performance to the Asian markets including China and Korea. A scene from Kinky Boots.“As a co-producer of ‘Kinky Boots,’ CJ E&M was able t

[THE INVESTOR] Chinese TV makers armed with price competitiveness are a growing threat to Korean electronics giants Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics.Chinese electronics firms, such as LeTV, which is also a streaming services firm, has recently rolled out 65-inch 4K TVs with a price tag of around $900 in the Chinese market, according to IHS, a market research firm.A model poses with Samsung Electronics’ super ultra-high definition TV. (Samsung Electronics)They are around three times cheaper

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics has announced that it would shift its focus to NAND flash memory from DRAM as the global DRAM market is reeling from record low prices.“The tech giant told investors (at the firm’s investor relations session) that it would scale down the investment in its DRAM business compared to last year,” reported online news outlet the Financial News, quoting a market analyst who participated in the meeting as saying.The tech giant held IR sessions in New York City and Bos

[THE INVESTOR] A top Samsung Electronics executive said that the Internet of Things market will serve as a driving force behind the company’s semiconductor business.Participating in an investor relations conference held at Conrad Seoul on June 20, Samsung’s chief technology officer So byung-se said “IoT will become a locomotive of the semiconductor business.”“Developers should tailor system-on-chips made by other chipmakers on their own, but the ARTIK platform gets rid of such nuisance,” the CTO

[THE INVESTOR] Smartphone-maker Pantech will release a new model on June 30, its first after being acquired by a consortium led by telecom equipment firm Solid in December last year.The firm, once the third largest in Korea after Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, was on the brink of bankruptcy due to decreasing sales and financial constraints in 2015.After it was acquired by the consortium, the firm has focused on rolling out connected devices for automotive, defense and home automation in

[THE INVESTOR] Korea Economic Research Institute, a state-run research organization, anticipated that the digital signage market would create around 70,000 jobs by the year 2020. The digital signage is a large-size digital board, often made of organic light-emitting diode or liquid-crystal displays. The boards are used to display images, videos and textual information. The signage segment will spark 10.1-trillion-won ($8.7 billion) worth of production and create 3.2 trillion won in added value,

[THE INVESTOR] LG Electronics said Monday that it would launch a recall campaign for air purifier filters after some products were found to contain Octylisothiazolinone (OIT), a chemical substance toxic to humans. “A small amount of OIT was found in 3M’s filters for fine particles, which were fitted in LG’s air purifiers and air conditioners produced after 2012,” the company said. LG Electronics’ air purifiers.Right after the toxic filter issue surfaced recently, LG has requested air filter make

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Display will reportedly beef up its production capacity for organic light-emitting diode displays at its manufacturing complex in Asan City, South Chungcheong Province, in a bid to maintain the lead in the growing market for display technology.The Nikkei, a Japanese financial newspaper, reported last week that the company will spend around 10 trillion won (US$8.5 billion) in newly building production facilities for display panels and updating the existing ones this year. A

[THE INVESTOR] Display maker LG Display said June 17 that it held a meeting with top officials from the Patent Examination Cooperation Center, a patent office, in Jiangsu, China. At the meeting the company’s chief technology officer Kang In-byeong elaborated on the firm’s business strategies and technologies including organic light-emitting diodes. LG Display’s chief technology officer Kang In-byeong (right).CTO Kang and officials from the patent office vowed to make concerted efforts to bring i

[THE INVESTOR] Camera module maker LG Innotek’s second-quarter operating profit will likely miss the market consensus due to the lackluster sales performance of its partners that include U.S.-based Apple and LG Electronics, according to an investment report.The Seoul-based LG Group affiliate is expected to post an operating loss of 20.4 billion won (US$17.4 million), far below the average of 10.8 billion won in operating profit forecast by a group of investment firms, according to Hana Financial

[THE INVESTOR] The stake of foreign investors in Samsung Electronics hit the highest level on June 16 in around seven months.The shares owned by foreign investors accounted for 50.7 percent -- the highest since Nov. 2, 2015, according to Korean Exchange, the sole securities exchange operator.Despite increasing fears of the UK’s exit from the European Union, they bought 560 billion won (US$447 million) worth of Samsung shares from June 1 to 16. The share price jumped to 1.4 million won in recent

[THE INVESTOR] A group of KT’s shareholders on June 16 filed a lawsuit against the telecommunications company for allegedly infringing on their right to speak at the shareholders meeting in March.The minority shareholders claimed in their complaint that the firm intentionally blocked them from entering the venue of the meeting for three hours in order to fill the front row seats with employee shareholders who sided with the firm. “KT deliberately gave only those employee stockholders in the fron

[THE INVESTOR] The chief of a global industry group that sets ultrahigh-definition technology standards said UHD technology would soon replace high-definition technology as the new norm in the industry. Speaking with Korean reporters in Seoul on Wednesday, UHD Alliance president Hanno Basse said members of the alliance would continue to make concerted efforts to improve the viewing experience of TVs. Samsung Electronics’ SUHD TVs.“It will not take long for UHD TVs to replace HD TVs, probably 5 y

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics has been actively seeking merger and acquisition deals of start-ups in the past couple of years.The list of its takeovers showed that the world’s largest electronics manufacturer has been focused on making a move into the software and cloud sectors and beefing up its presence in the business-to-business segment. Since 2014, the Korean tech giant acquired nine companies, including video app services developer firm SELBY in May 2014, SmartThings in Aug. 2014, pri

[THE INVESTOR] Packed with twists and turns, a divorce suit between former Samsung Electro-Mechanics executive Lim Woo-jae and his wife and Hotel Shilla president Lee Boo-jin unveiled unknown stories behind the family owners of Samsung Group, the largest conglomerate in Korea.Lim, first son-in-law of Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee, said in an interview with Korean news publication Hankyoreh on June 16 that he had twice attempted suicide during the 17 years of his marriage due to pressure fro

[THE INVESTOR] The top management of Samsung C&T, Samsung Group vice chairman Lee Jae-yong and the National Pension Service have been sued by an alliance of civic groups on charges of malpractice and stock price manipulation during the merger of then Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T in 2015.People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, one of the civic groups participating in the lawsuit, claimed that the merger between Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T in July 2015 was made to benefit the Sam

[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics said on June 16 it has acquired a US-based cloud service provider Joyent in its latest start-up shopping spree. With the acquisition, Samsung aims to strengthen its presence in the soaring cloud market, offering more advanced mobile services in the era of the Internet of Things technology. Detailed terms of the deal were not disclosed.  Screen capture of Joyent`s homepage“Samsung evaluated a wide range of potential companies in the public and private cloud infr

[THE INVESTOR] Demand for DRAM memory chips has slightly picked up as more Chinese smartphone firms adopt the memory chips, according to market watchers. Some also predicted that the upward trend could continue for a while.The increased demand has consequently driven up the price of DRAM chips.The price of a DDR3 2Gb chip stands at $0.934, up from $0.888 several days ago, according to market research firm DRAMeXchange.The main contributing factor for the price increase is that more Chinese smart

UHD to become new norm in TV market[THE INVESTOR] The chief of a global industry group that sets ultra-high definition technology standards said the UHD technology will soon replace high definition technology to become a new norm in the global TV industry. Speaking with Korean reporters in Seoul on Wednesday, UHD Alliance president Hanno Basse said members of the alliance will continue to make concerted efforts to improve the viewing experience of TVs.“It will not take long for UHD TVs to replac

[THE INVESTOR] The price of active-matrix organic light-emitting diodes, or AMOLED, for mobile devices is expected to drop below that of a liquid crystal display, according to market research firm IHS on June 15.A 5.5-inch AMOLED display, currently priced at $34, is expected to become cheaper at $25 to $28. But liquid cystal display, or LCD, prices will remain flat at around $26 to $29 in the first quarter next year, IHS said.Samsung Display’s improved production capacity is one of the biggest c