South Korean chipmaking giants have suffered a decline in their market capitalization and profitability due to heated competition from Chinese rivals and a heavy tax burden, data showed Monday. Of the world's top 100 chipmakers in the world by average market cap from January to September period, only three local players -- Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and SK Square -- were listed, according to the Federation of Korean Industries, a lobby group based in Seoul, citing data from S&P Cap

  SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won called on chiefs of the group’s affiliates to navigate business uncertainties by setting up case-by-case scenarios in order to turn misfortunes into gains, South Korea's second-largest business conglomerate said Sunday. The implementation of a data-driven action plan and internalization of sustainability factors, under the mantra of "SK Management System 2.0" unveiled in June, will allow the energy-to-biotechnology group to take a leap forwar

South Korean electric vehicle battery material firm EcoPro EM announced Friday that the world's largest cathode material production line has completed construction in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province. All of the critical material produced in the facility, named CAM7, will be supplied to Samsung SDI, the world's sixth-largest battery supplier, with some 5 percent of the global market share. The facility is ready to go online beginning the first quarter of 2023. The newest facility of E

South Korean artificial intelligence-powered chip design house FuriosaAI plans to mass-produce its first-generation product beginning later this year, its Chief Executive Officer June Paik said Thursday. The semiconductor product, dubbed Warboy, will be mass-produced in tech giant Samsung Electronics' chip plant, using Samsung's 14-nanometer node with fin field-effect transistor technology. “Following a series of internal tests and assessments, (Warboy) is ready to begin limited

South Korean lithium-ion battery maker LG Energy Solution announced Thursday it has signed a provisional deal with Australian graphite supplier Syrah Resources to diversify its supply sources for making graphite anodes typically used in electric car batteries. Under a memorandum of understanding, LG and Syrah on Wednesday tentatively agreed on a 2,000 metric ton graphite supply deal in 2025 as Syrah's graphite mines become operational. The two companies will ink the final supply contract by the

SoftBank-backed South Korean financial technology startup Qraft Technologies highlighted the role of artificial intelligence in equity asset allocation, as AI plays a complementary role to boost productivity and efficiency of human's tasks. An AI engine can pursue above-average returns with the capability to analyze massive amounts of financial data and discover relationships that humans hardly find, according to Qraft Technologies Chief Product Officer Alan Jo at The Korea Herald Biz Forum

The long-term business prospects of South Korean memory chip giants like Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are at their lowest points in China, despite being granted a one-year waiver to temporarily steer clear of chipmaking tool import restrictions to their Chinese fab plants. Experts say the uncertainties will inevitably force Korean chipmakers to relocate their chipmaking facilities, especially the most advanced fabs. "It’s possible that Korean memory chip manufacturers may try to u

South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics announced Monday it has opened six shared working spaces to nurture a hybrid work environment and flexible work culture. Two of the six spaces are located outside Samsung offices, in Seoul and Daegu, and the other four in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province; Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province; Gwangju; and Seoul are within Samsung office buildings. These co-working spaces, dubbed "d'light," feature open seats, partitioned desks, adjustable standing desks,

Samsung Wallet, a digital wallet and digital certificate platform known as Samsung Pay in South Korea, will become available in 13 more countries by the end of this year, tech giant Samsung Electronics announced Friday. The service will be expanded to Bahrain, Denmark, Finland, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Norway, Oman, Qatar, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates. With Samsung Wallet, Galaxy users can organize digital keys, payment cards, boarding passes, as well as ide

South Korean lithium-ion battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution is set to complete a $916 million capital commitment for a factory in Ohio under Ultium Cells, LG’s joint venture with General Motors, as the factory prepares for mass production in the near future, a filing showed Thursday. LG Energy Solution's US subsidiary will have its committed capital to Ultium Cells fully earmarked by Friday, as LG's payments first began in January 2020, according to the filing with the Finan

South Korean lithium-ion battery maker SK On has signed a conditional framework agreement to buy a 10 percent stake in Australian lithium developer Lake Resources in its new rights offering, a filing showed Wednesday. SK On will buy the stake in June 2023 on the condition that the high-purity lithium extraction from brine water in Lake Resources' flagship projects, including Kachi Project in Argentina, yields a "positive result," according to the filing with the Financial Supervisory S

South Korean chipmakers will be given a one-year grace period that would allow for their China-based chip plants to continue to import critical chipmaking tools from the United States, without the licensing requirements announced the previous week by the Joe Biden administration. Memory chip maker SK hynix revealed that the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security has assured SK hynix that the company, its suppliers and business partners are still authorized to engage in

South Korean lithium-ion battery maker LG Energy Solution and Japanese automaker Honda have selected Fayette County, Ohio as the location to commit to a combined $4.4 billion to build an electric vehicle battery plant beginning 2023, the companies said Wednesday. The construction was initially estimated to cost $3.5 billion. Once the construction is complete by the end of 2024, the new plant will start to mass produce pouch-type lithium-ion batteries beginning 2025 with the annual production cap

South Korean semiconductor wafer maker SK Siltron and Britain-based chip material firm IQE has inked a strategic collaboration agreement to develop next-generation compound semiconductor products targeting the Asian market, SK Siltron said Tuesday. Under the agreement signed Thursday, the two companies will work to develop epitaxial wafers based on gallium nitride using IQE's technology, with wafer substrates made of silicon and silicon carbide supplied by SK Siltron. Gallium nitride can he

South Korean business conglomerate Lotte Group has signed a deal to acquire a controlling stake in Iljin Materials, a copper foil supplier to electric vehicle battery makers for 2.7 trillion won ($1.9 billion), in Lotte's move to enhance the EV component portfolio, filings showed Tuesday. Lotte Battery Materials USA, a subsidiary of Lotte's petrochemical arm Lotte Chemical, will buy a 53.3 percent stake, or 24.6 million ordinary shares, in the world's fourth-largest copper foil ma

ULSAN -- SK Innovation, petrochemical arm of South Korea's second-largest business conglomerate, is poised to open a 1.7 trillion-won ($1.19 billion) plastic recycling complex by the second half of 2025, a move to accelerate its transformation to becoming a provider of ecofriendly products for a sustainable future. The 215,000-square-meter space in Korea's heavy industry powerhouse Ulsan will house facilities that would collect 250,000 tons of waste plastic each year and recycle about 80-90 per

ULSAN -- A green transition of Ulsan Industrial District, home to oil refineries, petrochemical plants, auto manufacturing facilities and shipbuilding sites, is crucial to alleviating the cost of carbon emissions and keeping the products' competitive edge in the global market, an Ulsan high-ranking official told reporters on Thursday. "Ulsan is now focusing on how it can diversify energy sources for the industrial complex," said Noh Dong-wan, director-general of innovative industry bu

Steel-to-chemical material firm Posco Holdings and lithium-ion battery cell manufacturer LG Energy Solution signed a more comprehensive agreement for electric vehicle battery material supply, the companies announced Monday. Based on the nonbinding agreement signed on Friday, Posco Holding is to ink a long-term deal to supply cathode materials and anode materials to LG Energy Solution before the end of 2022, according to South Korea's largest battery cell maker by batteries supplied to cars.

Amid a chaotic mood building among Korean chipmakers operating fabrication plants in China over Washington's chip export curbs on Beijing, a South Korean lawmaker said Sunday the companies are unlikely to be hurt, as the US would take some time to see to how the repercussions of its actions play out through the global supply chain. "(US authorities) are unlikely to be harsh in export controls on semiconductor equipment going to Korea-owned facilities, because the extent of (repercussions fr

LG Electronics said Sunday it has supplied autonomous robots to two locations of shopping mall chain Aeon in Japan. The multipurpose customer service robots, branded as the LG CLOi GuideBot, have recently begun operating in Aeon malls in Toki, a suburb of Nagoya, and Narita, 60 kilometers east of Tokyo, according to the South Korean tech giant, without specifying dates. The robots feature two 27-inch flat-panel displays with touch-screen functions at the front and the rear side. They can also co