Three South Korean electric vehicle battery makers accounted for 31 percent of the global market in the first quarter, but their market share has slipped since last year in the face of tougher competition from Chinese rivals, a market research firm said. The trio - LG Energy Solution, Samsung SDI and SK Innovation - supplied a combined 47.8 gigawatt-hour equivalents of EV batteries in the Janu...

South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor slipped to second place in the fuel cell electric vehicle market in the first quarter as Japanese rival Toyota clinched the top rank with the release of a new model, industry data showed. Global FCEV sales jumped 89.2 percent on-year to hit a record of nearly 4,000 units in the January-March period, mostly driven by strong sales of Toyota‘s second-generatio...

South Korea’s two major electronics firms - Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics - were among the top five players in the European smart home market in the fourth quarter of last year, a report showed, as they push to increase connected devices amid the pandemic-induced stay-at-home trend. Samsung was the third-largest vendor of smart home devices, including smart TVs, smart speakers, thermo...

CHANDLER (AP) -- Intel announced Tuesday it will build two new factories in Arizona and outsource more of its production as a new CEO looks to turnaround the struggling chipmaker. The California-based company says the Arizona expansion will cost about $20 billion and create 3,000 permanent jobs as Intel builds a foundry business to provide chips for other firms. More construction in the United S...

Samsung Electronics was relegated to the runner-up spot in the market for connected TV devices, which includes smart TVs, streamers and gaming consoles, in the fourth quarter of 2020, a report showed. Samsung, the world’s largest TV maker, shipped 11.9 million connected TV devices in the October-December period, up 2 percent from a quarter earlier, accounting for a 10.9 percent market share, a...

VERSAILLES, France (AFP) -- The French branch of Swedish retailing giant Ikea goes on trial Monday accused of running an elaborate system to spy on staff and job applicants using private detectives and police officers. Ikea France, as a corporate entity, will be in the dock as well as several of its former executives who risk prison terms. French investigative publications Le Canard Enchaine an...

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) -- Prices of popular gadgets such as PlayStations and iPhones could rise because of microchip shortages caused by a "perfect storm" of coronavirus-driven demand, supply chain disruptions and trade war stockpiling, experts warn. In the months after the pandemic hit, people stuck at home went on a spending spree to buy items including extra monitors, new computers and tablets --...

For Masayoshi Son, these days are even better than the dot-com bubble. Shares in the Japanese billionaire’s SoftBank Group surged in Tokyo on Tuesday to the highest close since the company went public in 1994, rising past a long-standing record two decades ago. The shares rose 4.2 percent to finish at 10,420 yen, surpassing its previous record of 10,111.09 yen marked on Feb. 18, 2000. SoftBank’...

Uber on Wednesday reported another hefty loss in the final three months of 2020, though the company's food delivery operations partly offset the hit taken from the decline in ridesharing during the pandemic. Thanks to that offset, the loss of $968 million was narrowed slightly from $1.1 billion in the same period a year earlier, according to Uber. Revenue in the quarter was $3.2 billion, a 16-p...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon as an online bookstore and built it into a shopping and entertainment behemoth, will step down later this year as CEO, a role he's had for nearly 30 years, to become executive chairman, the company announced Tuesday. Bezos, 57, will be replaced in the summer by Andy Jassy, who runs Amazon's cloud-computing business. In a blog post to employees, Be...

South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solution was the second-biggest supplier of electric vehicle batteries in the first 11 months of 2020 following China’s CATL, according to a market research firm. LG Energy Solution, which spun off from LG Chem earlier this month, shipped 26.4 gigawatt-hour equivalents of EV batteries in the January-November period, accounting for 22.6 percent of the global...

Automaker Volkswagen tripled sales of battery-only cars in 2020 despite the pandemic as its new electric compact ID.3 came on the market ahead of tough new European Union limits on auto emissions. It's an early sign of what will likely be an upcoming year of increasing market share for electric cars as EU regulations drive their adoption despite the economic upheaval caused by the COVID-19 outbr...

China's best-known entrepreneur, e-commerce billionaire Jack Ma, hasn't been seen in public since he angered regulators with an October speech

The marriage of carmakers PSA Peugeot and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is built on the promise of cost-savings in the capital-hungry industry, but what remains to be seen is if it will be able to preserve jobs and heritage brands in a global market still suffering from the pandemic. PSA Peugeot shareholders on Monday overwhelmingly approved the deal to create the world's fourth-largest carmaker, to...

UK ahead of others once more with emergency approval