Cosmetics giant Amorepacific will sell its office building in Nonhyun-dong, within Seoul’s Gangnam district, for 160 billion won ($131.25 million), according to the company’s regulatory filing Wednesday. The company decided to sell the building to secure liquidity and to improve solvency, the report said. The company added that it planned to sell it by April 29 this year. The target price accounts for about 2 percent of the cosmetic firm’s total assets as of end-2018. The

Eight out of 10, or 81.2 percent, Koreans watch videos online, according to a ICT Ministry report released Wednesday, with about 73.7 percent watching them on a daily basis. The ministry, in its annual survey on internet use patterns, surveyed a total 60,254 people from 25,031 households here between August and September last year. Online video platforms were most frequently used by the younger generation. About 93 percent of the people in their 20s answered that they watch videos online -- t

South Korea-based internet-of-things firms posted revenue of over 10 trillion won in 2019, up 16.2 percent on-year, according to the ICT Ministry on Tuesday. This is the first time for IoT companies have crossed the revenue milestone since the ministry began collecting relevant figures in 2014. Domestic sales accounted for 89 percent with 9.7 trillion won. Exports accounted for the remaining 1.2 trillion won. Exports have shown an average annual increase of 46.3 percent from 2015-19, the min

Air Busan on Monday said it will suspend 78 percent of its international routes next month to counter business challenges amid the COVID-19 outbreak. In March, the domestic low-cost carrier will stop operating 25 international routes bound for China and Southeast Asian countries, which have recently seen a dramatic decrease in passengers. According to the company, all Air Busan executives, including the CEO, have submitted their resignations to help the company cope with recent financial diff

The use of AI speakers, PCs and smartphones has increased here amid the COVID-19 outbreak, according to industry data. South Korean mobile carrier KT on Friday said use of its AI speaker Giga Genie increased 8.3 percent in Jan. 30-Feb. 12 compared with Jan. 2-15, before the outbreak was reported. In particular, the number of news searches surged 99 percent, KT said, adding that they were largely related to confirmed cases of the coronavirus here. Online grocery shopping via the AI speake

Online sales of Samsung Electronics’ Z Flip Thom Browne edition ended within just 2 1/2 hours on Friday. Samsung Electronics at Thursday midnight started sales of the limited Thom Browne edition of its new foldable phone. The company’s official website suffered crashes from the load as a rush of consumers tried to connect all at once. The number of Z Flip Thom Browne edition phones sold remained undisclosed by the company. Samsung Electronics was initially to open sales of the Z

The world’s first geostationary environment-monitoring satellite Chollian 2B made by South Korea has been successfully launched and reached outer space, the country’s aerospace research institute said Wednesday.  Chollian 2B was launched on the Ariane 5 ECA rocket from the space center in Kourou, French Guiana, at 7:18 a.m. as scheduled, according to the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. The satellite was detached from the Ariane rocket at 7:49 a.m. and made its first comm

South Korea’s environment-monitoring satellite Chollian 2B will lift off Wednesday morning as scheduled, the government-led aerospace project team said Tuesday. The Chollian 2B, a twin satellite of the Chollian 2A launched in 2018, is the world’s first geostationary satellite to be used in observing air conditions from 36,000 kilometers above the Earth’s equator. “The only thing that is left at the current moment is the countdown,” said Choi Jae-dong, director of

Samsung Electronics’ foldable phone Galaxy Z Flip went on sale online and offline in Korea on Friday, with some online vendors selling out within 30 minutes. It started taking preorders for its new flagship smartphone series Galaxy S20 the same day. The Galaxy Z Flip is available at Samsung’s official website and branches of major mobile carriers SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus. Earlier in the day, LG Uplus said Z Flip models sold out 30 minutes after launching Friday. In the fir

The Barcelona-based Mobile World Congress has withstood a bevy of bad news in its 33-year history, including the global financial crisis of 2007-2008 and the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic of 2002-2003, but it has now failed to survive the most recent viral outbreak from China. MWC 2020 has been completely off called, according to the announcement on Thursday made by the GSMA, the organizer of the world’s largest wireless show. It is the first time for the annual show to be c

CJ ENM partners with US-based production firms By Shim Woo-hyun CJ ENM said Wednesday it has signed a strategic partnership deal with US-based production giant Skydance Media to increase its foothold in the global market. The company and New York-based hedge fund RedBird Capital Partners have made investments worth $275 million in David Ellison’s Skydance Media, according to the firm. Skydance Media was first started in 2010 by the 37-year-old son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison. It is well

South Korea’s second-largest battery maker Samsung SDI said Tuesday it will launch a joint venture with local battery material maker EcoPro BM, as part of its efforts to develop next-generation batteries and better respond to the growing demand from global electric vehicle makers. EcoPro BM will invest 72 billion won ($60.8 million) for a 60 percent share in the joint venture, while Samsung SDI will invest 48 billion won for a 40 percent share in the new company. They plan to complete

South Korean tech firms plan to resume operations at their facilities in China on Monday -- after an extended 17-day holiday for Lunar New Year -- despite the ceaseless spread of the novel coronavirus across the world.  However, it is expected to take quite some time for them to fully recover their operation rates due to possible workforce shortages stemming from the rising number of virus infections in China, with fewer number of returning workers from the holiday in healthy conditions.

LG Electronics said Wednesday that the company was canceling its exhibition at Mobile World Congress 2020 in Barcelona, Spain, amid growing concerns over the new coronavirus that recently emerged in Wuhan, China. The company said it had decided to withdraw from MWC 2020 out of concern for the safety of its employees and the public. This is the first time LG Electronics will not have a presence at the mobile trade show, which takes place every February in Barcelona. LG is the first South Kore

More people are using OTT services amid mounting fears over the month-old coronavirus epidemic, according to data collected by local over-the-top streaming service operators. Disaster films are especially popular, the data showed. According to data collected by Watcha, the number of viewers using its OTT service Watcha Play peaked Jan. 27-31. The total number of minutes that viewers spent on the platform reached its highest point Jan. 27 and remained at similar levels throughout that time fram

KT has recently changed its database management system operator from Oracle to a third-party business, according to industry sources Monday. The mobile carrier has reportedly chosen Rimini Street as its database management system provider. A deal was signed considering costs and more efficient services, the sources explained. The partnership indicates KT’s attempts to opt out of overall reliance on Oracle products for its database system. It has not renewed Oracle’s DB license i

Semi Korea, the local organizer of Semicon Korea, on Friday canceled the nation’s semiconductor show due to mounting concerns over the new coronavirus. Semi Korea’s decision came in line with World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ announcement, in which he declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern.” Semi Korea added that it is currently looking into contingency plans for Semicon Korea 2020 and will post updates

Samsung on Friday announced a donation of 10,000 articles of anti-contamination clothing, as well as 30 million yuan ($4.3 million) to support China’s response to the novel coronavirus, the company announced Friday. The donations will be sent to the Red Cross Society of China, via Samsung’s Chinese headquarters, it added.  By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)

South Korean chipmaker SK hynix’s operating profit in 2019 plummeted 87 percent to 2.7 trillion won ($2.2 billion), amid the continued fall in memory chip prices and lower demand, according to its earnings report released Friday. The world’s second-biggest memory provider raised 26.9 trillion won in annual sales last year, a 33.3 percent plunge from 2018. The net profit nosedived 87 percent to 2.02 trillion won for the whole year. The company’s operating margin also droppe

LG Display announced Friday it has posted an operating loss of 1.35 trillion won ($1.1 billion) in 2019 -- largest in eight years -- going into the red amid ongoing business restructuring efforts.  Overall, the world’s biggest provider of organic light-emitting diode panels posted 23.5 trillion won in sales and 1.36 trillion won in operating loss last year, according to its earnings report for the final quarter of 2019. Compared to 2018, the annual sales dropped 8 percent, while th