Hyundai Motor Group chairman Chung Mong-koo visited Kia Motors’ factory in Zilina, a city in northwestern Slovakia, during a visit to Europe, the company’s officials said Thursday. “Hyundai and Kia should overcome the uncertainty through global sales as we did grow by pioneering overseas markets,” Chung told employees at the factory.Hyundai Motor Group chairman Chung Mong-koo visits Kia Motors’ factory in Slovakia. (Hyundai Motor)The factory in Slovakia, which currently produces Kia Motor’s vehi

Despite anticipation that Tesla Motors might make inroads in South Korea this year, the American electric vehicle maker might fail to capture significant market share due to its high prices, industry watchers said Thursday. Tesla will reportedly open flagship stores in Korea, with one in shopping mall Starfield in Hanam, a southeastern satellite city of Seoul, and the other possibly in Gangnam, southern Seoul. “Tesla’s presence in Starfield Hanam is confirmed. It may open the store at the end of

Hyundai Motor Group chairman Chung Mong-koo (center) inspects the quality of the carmaker’s new compact sport utility vehicle Creta, during his visit to its factory in St. Petersburg, Russia, Wednesday. Chung encouraged the employees to persevere despite difficult market conditions, calling them “patriots.”  (Hyundai Motor)

LG Electronics will step up its efforts to strengthen its automobile component business, as General Motors’ new electric car Bolt is expected to go on sale later this year, a brokerage said in its report Wednesday.SK Securities said LG’s vehicle components division is expected to post 1.4 trillion won in the latter half of this year -- a more than 40 percent increase from the previous year. The division already fared well in the first half, by posting 1.2 trillion won ($1 billion) in sales, a 48

Samsung SDS, the IT solutions affiliate of Samsung Group, is expanding its mobile security solution business into the European market, company officials said on Wednesday. The tech firm recently partnered with the U.K. banking and financial services company Barclays to back the development of digital banking services together with Samsung Electronics. Under the partnership, Samsung Electronics is set to provide its mobile security platform KNOX while Samsung SDS plans to offer its mobile authent

Hyundai Motor Group chairman Chung Mong-koo left for Europe on Tuesday to oversee the Russian, Slovakian and Czech markets hit by the Brexit vote, the company’s official said. The chairman plans to visit the automaker’s factories in the three nations to monitor sales and market conditions. “We should make a breakthrough starting from the European market, which is expected to see record-breaking sales this year, amid slow growth in the global auto market,” Chung said in the company’s statement. “

Memory chipmakers -- Samsung Electronics and SK hynix -- are spurring investment as Chinese tech giants are making an aggressive push into the semiconductor business backed by their government, analysts said.Chinese conglomerate Tsinghua Unigroup recently acquired half of the state-run chipmaker XMC. The tie-up is viewed by industry watchers as helping China move toward the goal of self-sufficiency in memory chips. Tsinghua Unigroup reportedly plans to set up memory chip factories with an invest

A local start-up has accused South Korean Internet search giant Naver of copying its photo and video-editing app. Seerslab alleged that Naver’s Snow app copied the image and camera functions of its photo-editing app Lollicam. Naver’s Snow is a photo app that enables users to take photos with face-tracking “stickers” and share them with friends. The app has hit 40 million downloads so far since it was first launched in September. Seerslab claims that Snow’s imaging functions, “stickers” and backg

The chiefs of the financial arms of major conglomerates -- including Samsung, Hyundai and Hanwha groups -- will face eligibility screenings as the government recently toughened regulations on managing financial companies, officials said Sunday.Under the nation’s revised corporate governance law, major shareholders of nonbanking financial entities, such as credit card, insurance and securities firms, are subject to periodic review by the Financial Services Commission on whether they are eligible

South Korea’s largest automaker Hyundai Motor has advised its employees to take vacation in the nation to boost domestic tourism, the company said Sunday. “We have prepared diverse programs to support vacations for the employees of the group and partner companies, as well as clients,” the company’s spokesperson said in a statement, adding, “We hope the programs will boost domestic tourism and consumption.”(123rf)The automaker said it plans to run resorts nationwide for around 150,000 employees t

South Korea’s most popular messenger Kakao’s transport services are picking up speed, spanning the gamut from taxi-hailing to navigation. “We are expanding transport services with the aim of relieving customers’ daily inconveniences through mobile services,” the company’s spokesperson said.  (Kakao)Kakao Taxi, which was launched in March last year, is a popular service, with 150 million calls in total made through it so far. The taxi-hailing service has also raised drivers’ incomes by effectivel

Samsung Electronics posted its best quarterly results in more than two years and it expects continued solid performance in the latter half of this year. The tech giant said Thursday it posted 8.1 trillion won ($7.2 billion) in operating profit in the second quarter, an 18 percent jump on-year. Revenue for the quarter rose 4.9 percent to 50 trillion won.The growth was mainly driven by its mobile business, which posted 4.3 trillion won in operating income. Its flagship smartphone Galaxy S7 series

LG Display’s latest plan to make an additional investment in plastic organic light-emitting diodes indicates that Samsung and LG would be double vendors for Apple’s new iPhone to be unveiled in 2018, industry sources said Wednesday. LG Display said Wednesday it plans to invest around 2 trillion won ($1.76 billion) -- equivalent to around 15 percent of the display-maker’s equity capital -- to produce around 15,000 plastic OLED sheets per month in its Paju plant. LG Display CEO Han Sang-beom speak

[THE INVESTOR] Hyundai Motor, the world’s fifth-largest carmaker, said it posted a second-quarter operating profit of 1.76 trillion won ($1.54 billion), up 0.6 percent on-year. Compared to the first quarter of 2016, operating profit rose 31.2 percent, the carmaker said Tuesday.Sales rose 8.1 percent to 24.67 trillion won -- the highest in terms of second-quarter figures. In total Hyundai sold 1,285,860 units during the cited period. “An improved sales mix, combined with increased car finance rev

[News Analysis] Samsung Electronics’ latest plan to expand its research and development center in Austin, Texas, demonstrates its efforts to secure talents on its future businesses such as driverless cars or artificial intelligence, analysts said Tuesday.Samsung Austin R&D Center, which develops system large-scale integration for premium mobile devices, said last week it would be relocating its offices from its current location at Ladera Bend to a new, larger and updated 112,000-square-foot spac

Japanese hybrid cars are eating into German diesel cars’ share in the Korea’s foreign car market, following a series of emissions and mileage scandals, according to market analysts. The combined sales of German brands -- BMW, Mercedes Benz, Audi and Volkswagen -- declined by 9 percent in the first half year-on-year, with their market share going down 4.6 percent to 64.2 percent, according to the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association.The fall was mainly led by the sales decline of

The nation’s leading chemical and battery firm LG Chem is set to triple its elastomer output to meet the growing demand in the global market, the company said on Monday. LG Chem said it would invest 400 billion won ($351 million) to build additional factories, which will be capable of producing 200,000 metric tons of elastomers on an annual basis. Elastomer is high-valued synthetic resins, which is used for materials for cars, shoes, functional films and electric wire. When the plants are comple

Korea’s top oil refiner SK Innovation on Friday reported a 6.5 percent increase in net profit in the second quarter led by its petro-chemical business. Its net profit reached 626 billion won ($551 million), compared with 588 billion won a year earlier, the company said. Operating income rose 12 percent to 1.12 trillion won and sales jumped 21 percent to 10.28 trillion won. The company attributed the strong performance to its petro-chemical business which benefited from lower oil prices.  SK Inno

Kim Young-pill (third from right), a president of Green Cross Medical Science, a subsidiary of Korean biopharmaceutical company Green Cross, poses with foreign clients, who attended the conference held at its headquarters located in Yongin City on Thursday. (Green Cross Medical Science)　　

Multinational manufacturer 3M apologized for the uproar over the detection of a toxic substance in its air purifier filters, and promised to start a recall on Friday.The apology comes after weeks of silence following the first reports of potentially harmful toxins in the company’s filters.3M(Yonhap)“We sincerely apologize for the concern that we have caused consumers and our client companies over the results of the Environmental Ministry’s investigation announced on Wednesday,” the statement rea