LG Electronics will offer its core technology for the manufacturing of ice-making refrigerators to one of its competitors, GE Appliance, under a licensing contract, it said Thursday. GE Appliance is currently owned by China’s Haier. The Chinese company acquired the home appliance unit of US-based electronic giant GE and operates the business in the US.  The latest licensing contract allows the Haier subsidiary to use LG’s proprietary technology for making ice cubes inside the fr

Woongjin Group said Thursday that the group will resell water purifier business Coway, just three months after completing its reacquisition, to stave off financial risks. The group will seek to sell a 25.08 percent stake in Woongjin Coway by hiring Korea Investment and Securities as an overseer. Woongjin had sold the unit to private equity MBK Partners in 2013. Then, in March, the group repurchased a 22.17 percent stake from the PE for 1.68 trillion won. It later bought an additional 2.91 percen

SK hynix announced Wednesday it has started mass-producing 1-terabit NAND chips using its proprietary 4D platform to offer the industry’s largest memory storage capacity. According to the South Korean memory chip maker, the world’s first 128-layer triple-level cell 4D NAND chips with 1Tb storage will be released in the market in the second half of the year.  The company highlighted that the 128-layer 4D NAND flash has become available for commercial use just eight months after

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong is preparing for a meeting with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia by checking out Samsung affiliates’ projects in the Middle East, the company said Tuesday. Lee, as the de facto leader of the biggest conglomerate in South Korea, is expected to attend a luncheon hosted by President Moon Jae-in for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at Cheong Wa Dae on Wednesday.  The Samsung heir on Monday held meetings with the heads of Samsung Engineering a

While Samsung Electronics remains indecisive about an official launch of the Galaxy Fold after nearly two months, the South Korean tech giant seems to be preparing to roll out the company’s flagship phablet Galaxy Note 10 on schedule in August, industry sources saidMonday. “The Galaxy Note 10 will have its own timeline for its debut in August, regardless of the Galaxy Fold’s launch schedule,” said a Samsung official. “The company keeps the same stance about the Gala

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and six other global tech giants are being investigated by the US International Trade Commission following allegations that they violated patents in their touch-controlled mobile devices, computers and components, according to industry sources Sunday. The USITC disclosed on its website that it will launch an investigation over allegations that certain touch-controlled devices imported to the US have violated Section 337 of the US Tariff Act.The complaint w

Forecasts for the global memory chip market are growing more pessimistic, as a rebound in prices is not likely to happen until next year amid tension between the United States and China’s Huawei Technologies, according to financial reports and industry insiders on Thursday. The negative outlook is dampening expectations about South Korean chipmakers’ performance for the next six months. Global financial institutions, including UBS Securities, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, recentl

Samsung Electronics will aggressively push for mergers and acquisitions of startups and sizable global businesses in the field of non-memory semiconductors, said the head of its system-on-chip business on Tuesday. Kang In-yup, president of the system LSI business of Samsung’s device solutions division, emphasized that Samsung “is open to M&As,” after announcing his unit’s plan to accelerate the development and commercialization of neural processing units and NPU-equip

Lee Jae-yong, the de facto leader of South Korea’s largest conglomerate Samsung Electronics, on Monday continued his visits to the tech giant’s emerging businesses in the fields of automotive parts and the fifth-generation network. Samsung Vice Chairman Lee visited the headquarters of Samsung Electro-Mechanics in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, to check out the affiliate’s new businesses in auto parts and 5G modules, according to the firm.The Samsung affiliate is a major provider of

Little progress seems to have been made on the launch of Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Fold, as the company on Friday denied rumors that the world’s first foldable smartphone would be released in July. There have been rumors that the foldable device would be unveiled to Korean media in June and released on the market in July. Last week, Samsung’s smartphone business chief Koh Dong-jin told a Korean media outlet that the phone would arrive before July. However, according to Samsun

LG Chem announced Thursday its first joint venture with China’s No. 1 automaker Geely Auto Group for the production of electric vehicle batteries, with a plan to secure capacity of 10 gigawatt-hours by late 2021. The South Korean battery manufacturer said it signed a contract with the Chinese automaker on the establishment of the joint venture, with an equal amount of financial investments from each company, at Geely’s research center in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, on Wednesday. Under

LG Corp., the holding company of South Korea’s fourth-largest conglomerate, is continuing to streamline the group’s business portfolio by selling its stake in multiple affiliates in order to focus on future businesses, according to industry sources Wednesday. As part of the plan, the company is preparing to sell over 35 percent stake in LG CNS, an IT software development affiliate in which it owns 85 percent shares. Although LG Corp. said the sell-off is still under consideration, JP

South Korean battery manufacturers on Tuesday expressed optimism after receiving government approval to resume business in the area of energy storage systems, after being forced to suspend it due to a probe into a series of fires at 23 ESS facilities. After suffering losses in the first quarter of this year largely because of delayed supplies, the country’s two major ESS providers, Samsung SDI and LG Chem, are expected to resume business in the second half of the year in hopes of recoverin

On the heels of a lawsuit filed by LG Chem in the United States, SK Innovation sued its South Korean competitor for defamation in a local court, claiming 1 billion won in damages in a new chapter in the ongoing legal battle. The country’s top energy business and newcomer to the lithium-ion battery market said Monday that it could no longer endure “groundless accusations” brought against it by rival LG Chem. LG Chem, in response, said it feels “regret” over SK Innova

South Korea’s tech giants including Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are increasingly on edge over the ongoing economic brinkmanship between the United States and China, in light of a reported warning from Beijing not to cooperate with the Trump administration’s China ban, according to industry sources Sunday. “We will need to step up monitoring on the issue,” said an official from one of the major companies based in Seoul. “Companies here will watch the situation c

Samsung Electronics will further downsize its ailing smartphone business in China while seeking to expand growth in India, according to the industry on Wednesday. The world’s top smartphone vendor is reducing the workforce of its only mobile device factory in Huizhou, Guangdong province, reported Chinese English-language media outlet Caixin.The size of the reduction has not been confirmed, though the Chinese report said layoffs are being carried out on a voluntary basis, with employee

A new technology partnership has been formed between South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and the United States’ AMD on low-power and high-performance mobile graphics, according to the companies Tuesday. Under the multiyear partnership, Samsung Electronics will license AMD’s graphics intellectual property, based on the recently announced, highly-scalable Radeon graphics architecture, for use in its mobile devices including smartphones. Samsung will pay AMD license fees and royalti

Samsung Electronics said Tuesday it has embarked on initial research on the sixth-generation telecommunications network by launching a new research center. Samsung recently formed the Advanced Communications Research Center under Samsung Research, the company’s main R&D organization, based in southern Seoul. The tech giant has expanded the existing telecommunications research team to the level of a center after the launch of fifth-generation technologies.  “The current team

Samsung Electronics’ Consumer Electronics CEO Kim Hyun-suk said Tuesday that the company will launch the Galaxy Home speaker in the third quarter of this year. “The Galaxy Home speaker, which will be the center of Samsung’s home appliances, is planned to be launched in mid-second half of the year,” Kim told The Korea Herald in response to a question. Kim answered the question after a press conference held to unveil Samsung’s new lifestyle-focused vision for consumer

Understanding the latest circumstances as a “new crisis” phase for Samsung Electronics, the top conglomerate in Korea appears to be seeking measures to tackle a series of challenges looming large over the tech giant, according to industry sources Monday. The sense of urgency within Samsung has been felt across the business community, as recent remarks made by Vice Chairman and heir apparent Lee Jae-yong went public. On Saturday, Lee appeared in the lobby of Samsung’s semiconduc