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Earnings Kia hits record 2024 sales; profit margins highest among global automakers

South Korea’s second-largest automaker Kia Corp. on Friday posted its highest-ever annual sales, operating profit and profit margins in 2024, ...

Webtoons Naver Webtoon invests in Japan's Number Nine

South Korea's Naver Webtoon said on Thursday that its Japanese service operator Line Digital Frontier invested in Number Nine, a webtoon studio in J...

IPOs Celltrion seeks large-scale M&A in Q4, eyes 2027 Nasdaq debut

SAN FRANCISCO – South Korea’s leading biosimilar drug developer Celltrion Inc. seeks to acquire a domestic health food maker as early as...

Korean Investors Former LG man leaves KKR to start PEF

Lim Hyoung-seok, former Vice President of KKR Korea, left the private equity giant’s Seoul office and established his private equity fund (PEF...

Korean games DevSisters, VNG Games sign Cookie Run Asia publishing deal

South Korean game developer DevSisters Corp. said on Friday that it signed a publishing agreement with Vietnamese game company VNG Games for "Cookie...

Bio & Pharma MedInTech attracts $14.6 mn series B investment

MedInTech Inc., South Korea's medical smart endoscopes startup, announced on Monday that it attracted a series B investment of 20 billion won ($14.6...

Automobiles Kia to bring 1st hybrid variant of subcompact SUV Sonet to Japan, China

Kia Corp., South Korea’s second-largest automaker, plans to aggressively expand its hybrid vehicle lineup to subcompact SUVs amid slower-than-...

Economy Korea’s factory output rebounds in February on chip recovery

South Korea’s factory activity last month bounced back in three months thanks to strong recovery in the country’s semiconductor sector b...

Batteries EV charging speed, battery sector’s emerging battlefield

South Korea’s three major battery makers are rushing to shorten times for electric vehicle charging, the main issue for consumers reluctant to...

Travel & Leisure MyRealTrip attracts $57 mn investment

South Korea's travel app MyRealTrip announced on Friday that it has attracted 75.6 billion won ($56.55 million) investment from domestic and foreign...

Food & Beverage Paris Baguette to open nine new North American stores in Sept.

Paris Baguette, the bakery franchise owned by South Korea's SPC Group, said on Wednesday that it plans to open nine new stores in North America this...

Leadership & Management SK Group commemorates chairman's 25th year since inauguration

SK Group, South Korea’s No. 2 conglomerate, will commemorate the 25th anniversary of Chey Tae-won’s inauguration as chairman on Sept. 1....

Korean startups Forbes selects nine S.Korean startups as Asia 100 to Watch

Nine South Korean startups have made it to the "Forbes Asia 100 to Watch 2023" list.According to Forbes on Tuesday, the following companies were sel...

Electronics Samsung, LG rank top in J.D. Power’s appliance satisfaction study

Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. top ranked in J.D. Power's 2023 US Appliance Satisfaction Study of nine major categories. J.D. ...

Real estate Singapore's CDL buys Nine Tree hotel in Seoul for $107 mn

Singapore-based major real estate firm City Developments Ltd. (CDL) has bought Nine Tree Premier Hotel Myeongdong II from South Korea’s Shinha...

Retail Korean dept stores to lure foreigners with K-pop, festival

South Korean department stores are set to launch various programs such as a festival and sales of K-pop star merchandise to attract foreign tourists...

Bio & Pharma AbClon shows promising results in clinical tests of leukemia treatment

South Korean companies are standing out in the global competition to develop chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) treatments, dubbed "dream" a...

Batteries LG Energy partners with Seoul Nat'l Univ. for battery technology

South Korea's No. 1 secondary battery maker LG Energy Solution Ltd. and Seoul National University on Friday signed an agreement to establish an indu...

Airlines Chinese regulator approves Korean Air-Asiana merger

The merger between South Korea's two leading airlines Korean Air Lines Co. and Asiana Airlines Inc. passed a hurdle as China's antitrust watchdog ga...

K-pop Blackpink's 'Ice Cream' music video surpasses 800 mn views

K-pop girl group Blackpink’s “Ice Cream” music video exceeded 800 million views on YouTube around 2 a.m. on Nov. 30 local time, it...

Corporate strategy LG Elec to bet on healthcare, mobility, metaverse in N.America

LG Electronics Inc., the global top home appliance maker, will bet on the healthcare, mobility and metaverse sectors in North America through invest...

Corporate strategy Korea Inc. accumulates cash as economic downturn deepens

South Korean companies, led by the country’s most valuable firm Samsung Electronics Co., have rushed to accumulate cash as interest rates kept...

Food & Beverage Samyang Foods' Hot Chicken Flavor Ramen sales surpass 4 bn

Samyang Foods Co. announced Monday it has sold more than 4 billion packets of its uber-popular Hot Chicken Flavor Ramen, or buldak-bokkeum-myeon, to...

Private equity Small S.Korean PE firms flex muscle during pandemic

Private equity firms registered in South Korea enjoyed a 20% jump in their accumulated commitments in 2021 as a whole, led by small and medium-sized...

Tech, Media & Telecom KT's transformation beyond telco to digital platform

South Korea’s telecom operator KT Corp. surprised the market early this month with a 41.1% on-year surge in first-quarter operating profit, wh...

Energy S-Oil shuts processing units after one killed, nine injured in blast

ULSAN, South Korea -- S-Oil Corp., Saudi Aramco’s refining unit in South Korea, has shut some of its production facilities in a move that will...

Corporate governance SK Hynix board strengthens role for greater say

SK Hynix Inc.’s board of directors is actively involved in the South Korean chipmaker’s management from the stages of strategy formulati...

Korean startups Nine out of 10 VC heads in S.Korea say startups overvalued: Survey

Heads of South Korea’s leading venture capital firms say domestic startups have entered a phase of overvaluation. The Korea Economic Dail...

COVID-19 Celltrion to export COVID-19 treatment to Europe in 2021

South Korea’s pharmaceutical giant Celltrion Inc. is set to export its COVID-19 treatment Regkirona to Europe by the end of this year as it se...

Leadership & Management Koo Ja-eun takes helm of Korea’s cable, machinery conglomerate LS Group

Koo Ja-eun, chairman of South Korea’s LS Mtron Co., a machinery and components maker, will lead the country’s 14th-largest conglomerate ...