South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. said Wednesday its net profit plunged 39 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier due to weak earnings from its mobile business. Net income reached 4.63 trillion won ($4.32 billion) in the January-March period, compared with 7.6 trillion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. Operating profit came to 5.98 trillion won...

LG Electronics Inc., South Korea's No. 2 smartphone and home appliance maker, said Tuesday it is considering joining the global partnership for ultra high-definition television and digital content, following rival Samsung's announcement to become a member at the beginning of this year. "We're looking into joining the UHD Alliance. If we do so, we'll be taking part in setting the standards for UH...

The antitrust watchdog said Monday it has fined retail giant Homeplus and its affiliate Homeplus Tesco for providing local insurers with the personal information of applicants for giveaway events. The 435 million won ($404,500) fine was slapped on the retailers after they collected information on customers between August 2011 and June 2014, the Fair Trade Commission said. Homeplus, which has mo...

Dongkuk Steel Mill Co., South Korea's third-largest steel maker, said Friday it plans to sell its headquarters building in downtown Seoul to a local insurer as part of its efforts to bolster its financial status. Dongkuk's board of directors approved the deal worth 420 billion won ($389 million) to sell the building to Samsung Life Insurance Co., an insurance unit of the country's top conglomera...

Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's largest automaker, said Thursday its first-quarter net profit dropped 2.2 percent from a year earlier, affected by the strong local currency that hurts its sales in emerging markets. Net profit came to 1.98 trillion won ($1.83 billion) during the January-March period, compared with 2.03 trillion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. The fi...

South Korea's No. 2 chipmaker SK hynix Inc. said Thursday its net profit shot up 61.5 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier on robust sales of server and mobile dynamic random access memory (DRAM) products. Net profit came to 1.29 trillion won ($1.2 billion) in the January-March period, compared with 802.5 billion won a year earlier, the company said in its regulatory filing. Revenue...

SK C&C Co., an IT service unit of South Korea's No. 3 conglomerate SK Group, said Monday it will merge with SK Holdings Co. through a stock swap deal, a move seen as part of groupwide efforts to solidify its chairman's grip on the group. The deal is the latest in a series of moves by the country's conglomerates to revamp their ownership structure, and is expected to help the group's chairman Che...

Kia Motors Corp.'s all-new Carnival minivan has received the highest safety rating for collision tests conducted by a U.S. highway safety agency, the company said Thursday. The Carnival minivan, also known as the Sedona in the U.S., has received the highest rating of five stars from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in overall safety tests, according to the company. It received...

Hyundai Motor Co. and its smaller affiliate Kia Motors Corp. said Thursday that they posted record monthly sales in Europe last month on growing demand for their strategic car models targeting local customers. Hyundai Motor said that its Europe sales in March came to 48,215 units, up 11.9 percent from the previous year when it sold 43,076 cars. This marked the largest monthly sales following 48,...

South Korean retail conglomerate Lotte, which operates retail channels including duty-free shops, said Wednesday that it has withdrawn its bid to buy an Italian duty-free company. "Lotte Group has considered acquiring Italian World Duty Free from many different angles, but the WDF has notified us to discontinue the process with Lotte Group, due to simultaneous talks with another company," Lotte ...

Samsung SDS Co., an information technology solution arm of South Korea's top conglomerate, Samsung Group, said Wednesday it is aiming to almost triple its annual sales to 20 trillion won ($18.2 billion) by 2020 by expanding its mainstay IT-outsourcing business. Last year, Samsung SDS, established in 1985, raked in 7.8 trillion won in sales. "Samsung has been dealing well with paradigm changes i...

LG Electronics Inc., South Korea's No. 2 tech firm, said Wednesday it will release a low-end smartphone that boasts a slightly curved screen, giving an early peek of the flagship G4 smartphone set to hit shelves later this month. Although not as curved as the G Flex 2 released earlier this year, which has a curvature of 650-750R, the LG Volt will come with a 4.7-inch HD in-plane switching displa...

Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's top automaker, denied a media report Wednesday that it is seeking to build a factory in Mexico, calling it "groundless." Bloomberg earlier reported that Hyundai Motor is pushing to build a plant in Mexico, citing an interview with a high-ranking official of the local unit of the automaker. He was quoted as saying that Hyundai's car production in the country will ...

Hyundai Motor Co. and its smaller affiliate Kia Motors Corp. saw domestic sales of their full-size sedans drop sharply in the face of intensifying competition from foreign brands, industry data showed Tuesday. According to the data, Hyundai Motor, the country's largest carmaker, sold 19,919 units of the Grandeur during the first quarter of this year, down 15.7 percent from a year earlier. The G...

Sales of Samsung Electronics Co.'s Galaxy S6 Edge, a curved sister of the new flagship Galaxy S6 smartphone, have been much higher than expected, industry sources said Tuesday, with its supply unlikely to meet surging demand for the time being. Samsung rolled out the latest smartphone models in 20 countries on Friday, hoping they will help revitalize its ailing mobile business and take on Apple ...