New orders of ships worldwide fell to a historic low in the first half of the year amid the coronavirus pandemic, industry sources said. In the January-June period, global new shipbuilding orders totaled 5.75 million compensated gross tons, or a total of 269 ships, according to data provided by global market researcher Clarkson Research Service. The tally is the lowest since 1996, when the m...

Samsung Electronics dominated the 5G smartphone market in the United States in the first quarter of the year, a report showed. Samsung’s Galaxy S20 series, which was unveiled in February, made up 94 percent of the US 5G smartphone market in the January-March period, according to market tracker Strategy Analytics, with the S20 Plus being the bestselling model. The midtier S20 Plus accounted f...

Lineage 2M, a mobile massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Korean online game maker NCSoft, was the highest grossing app on the Google Play Store during the first quarter of the year, industry data showed. The mobile version of mega-hit Lineage II was the most popular app in the world on Android platforms during the January-March period, partly on the back of the novel coronavirus ...

South Korea’s gross domestic product ranked 10th in the world in 2019, down two notches from the previous year, data showed. Asia’s fourth-largest economy registered $1.64 trillion in nominal GDP last year, according to the data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation. It marked South Korea’s first ranking drop since the 2008 global financial crisis. The OECD analyzed 38 advanced and ...

Spending on video games in the US jumped to a new April record as locked-down consumers sought refuge in playing games, industry figures showed. A total of $1.5 billion was spent on video game hardware, software, accessories and game cards, eclipsing a previous April high of $1.2 billion spent in the US in 2008, according to NPD analyst Mat Piscatella. April was the first full month of tight...

Apple again commanded a majority share of the smartwatch market in the first quarter, when the COVID-19 outbreak encouraged health tracking and drove a 20 percent rise in shipments. Global smartwatch shipments reached 13.7 million units in the first three months of this year, defying a worldwide slump in consumer electronics arenas such as mobile phones. Apple’s share inched up a percentage po...

MOSCOW (AFP) -- Cars sales in Russia plummeted by a historic 72.4 percent in April, manufacturers said Wednesday, after the industry was hit by the sweeping restrictions imposed to slow the coronavirus pandemic. Year-on-year sales in April totalled just 38,922 units across the country, according to the Association of European Businesses which represents foreign investors in Russia. This is "the...

DUBAI (AP) -- Saudi Aramco, the kingdom's energy producer, announced on Tuesday a net income of $16.7 billion for the first three months of the year and dividends of $18.75 billion for shareholders. Despite posting the highest quarter dividends in 2020 of any listed company, its profits were 25 percent down, compared to the same time last year when earnings topped $22 billion. Aramco President ...

Global 5G smartphone shipments grew to 24.1 million in the first quarter. Samsung Electronics was the top vendor of 5G smartphones, shipping 8.3 million units globally in the first quarter this year, according to market tracker Strategy Analytics. Huawei Technologies came in a close second, shipping 8 million 5G smartphones, as Vivo, Xiomi and OPPO rounded out the top five.

Global personal computer shipments dropped the most since 2013 in the first quarter, after the COVID-19 pandemic ensnared the Chinese supply-chain and created production problems for major hardware companies. PC makers shipped 51.6 million laptops, desktops and workstations in the first three months of 2020, a 12 percent decrease compared with a year earlier, research firm Gartner said in a st...

China last year became the world leader in international patent filings, unseating the United States which had held the top spot for more than four decades, the UN said. The World Intellectual Property Organization said that China topped the ranking with 58,990 applications followed by US, Japan, Germany and South Korea. And for the third consecutive year, China-based telecoms giant Huawei Tec...

TOKYO (AFP) -- Struggling Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group on Monday forecast a $7-billion net loss for the year ended March due to the negative impact of coronavirus and losses related to WeWork. The telecoms and investment giant, led by flamboyant entrepreneur Masayoshi Son, also said in a surprise press release it expected to suffer an operating loss of 1.35 trillion yen or $12.5 billion....

Moody's has downgraded South Africa's credit rating to junk status, piling more anguish on an economy already in recession and battered by Africa's worst coronavirus outbreak. Two other major international rating agencies Fitch and S&P had cut the credit rating of Africa's most developed economy to subinvestment level in 2017. Losing its last investment grade rating will see the country being e...

Samsung Electronics retained its dominant position in the South American smartphone market last year, data showed. Samsung accounted for 38 percent of the South American smartphone market in 2019, up 1.4 percentage points from a year earlier, according to market researcher Counterpoint Research. Motorola was the runner-up with a 15.5 percent market share, up 2.7 percentage points from a year...

With the global economy melting down after the failure of Lehman Brothers in 2008, world leaders swiftly created an international forum that committed to boost economies by spending more and keeping trade open. Central banks announced rate cuts within seconds of each other. The approach to the economic shock from the coronavirus outbreak is, so far, looking very different. The disease for most p...