KT Corp., a major South Korean telecom operator, said Monday global robotics expert Dennis Hong will join the company in an advisory role to help boost its efforts to integrate new technology into their services. Hong, a professor and the founding director of the Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory at UCLA, will advise the company on its broader robotics business, according to KT. The move comes as the telecom operator has recently shifted focus to AI and robotics, and last year acquired a 10

Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong will not appeal last week's appeals court ruling that sentenced him to 2 1/2 years in prison in a retrial of a high-profile bribery case, his lawyer said Monday. Last Monday, the Seoul High Court handed down the verdict to the vice chairman of Samsung Electronics Co. for bribing former President Park Geun-hye and her longtime friend, Choi Soon-sil, to win government support for a smooth father-to-son transfer of managerial power at Samsung. Lee was sent back to prison

As market uncertainty continues due to the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign-invested companies here have been passive about taking on new employees, a report from a state trade agency showed Sunday. According to the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, which surveyed 2,500 firms between August and October last year, only 2 out of 10 had carried out their recruitment plans for the year. A total of 464 companies, or 18.6 percent of those surveyed, sought to hire. Of those, 218 had completed thei

SK Holdings, an investment-focused holdings firm within SK Group, said Sunday that it will focus its investment on four business areas: advanced materials, green, bio and digital. For investment expertise and efficiency, the company has reorganized its operations according to the four sectors, it added. “2021 will be a meaningful year for SK Holdings in this four-way investment drive,” CEO Jang Dong-hyun said via a press release. The company kicked off the year with a 1.6 trill

Rummaging around for car keys may soon become a relic of the past. South Korea’s electronic component manufacturing firm LG Innotek said Sunday that it has succeeded in developing a digital car key module that would enable smartphones to replace car keys. The module is equipped with high-precision location detection ability and has reliable security functions, LG Innotek said. The company is actively running promotions targeting global manufacturers of vehicles and vehicle components in

Posco, the world's fifth-largest steelmaker by output, is expected to have logged double-digit operating profit growth in the fourth quarter on increased demand despite the coronavirus pandemic. Strong demand for steel products in China and a hike in steel prices likely buoyed the company's bottom line in the October-December period, analysts said. Posco is estimated to have posted an operating profit of 838.3 billion won ($760.1 million) in the fourth quarter, up 50.3 percent from a year earl

A lack of hospital beds has been one of the painstaking points of COVID-19 pandemic as more and more medical institutions around the globe become overwhelmed with patients amid the relentless spread of the coronavirus. GreenPureTech., a Seoul-based medical equipment provider, hopes to provide quick relief to this bed crunch and contribute to saving more lives. According to CEO Lim Hyung-bo, the company is an unrivalled leader in the field of movable negative pressure rooms in South Korea, wi

Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., a major South Korean builder, said Friday it shifted to a net loss in the fourth quarter from a year earlier due to currency-related losses. For the three months that ended in December, Hyundai E&C swung to a net loss of 122 billion won ($110.6 million) from a net profit of 6.9 billion won in the same period of last year, the company said in a regulatory filing. The company said the US dollar's strength against the won mainly contributed to the l

Korean Air Lines Co., South Korea's biggest carrier, said Friday it will raise a higher than previously planned amount by selling stocks for its planned acquisition of smaller rival Asiana Airlines Inc. Korean Air plans to sell 3.3 trillion won ($3 billion) worth of new stocks, which is higher than the originally planned 2.5 trillion won to finance the acquisition of debt-laden Asiana, due to its soaring stock price, the company said in a regulatory filing. The national flag carrier plans to i

South Korea's antitrust regulator said Friday it will seek to take punitive actions against unfair business activity by online platform operators in a bid to protect contractors and consumers. The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) plans to submit a bill designed to prevent unfair business activity by online platform operators to the National Assembly next week, the regulator said in its 2021 policy plan. Under the bill, online platform operators will be levied with a hefty fine if they conduc

South Korea said Friday it plans to deploy at least five vessels by the end of February to support exporters facing troubles from a hike in freight costs amid soaring demand. Under the plan, HMM Co., the country's leading shipper, will operate a ship with a capacity of 4,600 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) on the American route in January, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. TEU is a measure used for the capacity of container transportation. SM Line Corp., another loca

ULikeKorea on Thursday announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Sumitomo Corporation Korea to develop a health care tracker chip for pets in Japan. While existing microchip implants for dogs and cats reveal their identification serial numbers and can be used to trace lost animals back to their families, the proposed new product could enable real-time monitoring of an animal’s body temperature and activity levels through a mobile application. With this information, p

Hanwha Solutions to inject $1b to transform into a leading solar-to-hydrogen company

Nation’s superrich group comprises both chaebol members and new business figures

From a wartime gunpowder supplier to a retail-to-finance conglomerate, Hanwha Group has made quite a transformation in its near seven-decade history. Yet, its change from now on may be even more dramatic, as the group with 86 affiliates and total assets of 71 trillion won redefines its core to future-leading technologies such as solar power and hydrogen. At the very center of this ongoing shift in Hanwha’s identity stands Kim Dong-kwan, the eldest son of Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seun