KT, a South Korean telecom giant, and its affiliate had the most number of pay TV subscribers in the country in the first half of this year, maintaining the top status in terms of market share, ministry data showed. The mobile carrier and its satellite TV unit KT Skylife had a combined 31.4 percent share of the market, or 10.7 million subscribers, in the January-June period, followed by LG Upl...

The number of South Korean students in the United States dropped this year, a US report showed, amid the coronavirus pandemic that has led to a plunge in the number of travelers between the two countries. However, the number of US students in Korea has jumped sharply over the same period, according to the report from the US State Department. In the 2019-2020 school year, the number of Korean...

Paris and Switzerland’s Zurich tied Hong Kong as the world’s most expensive cities this year as the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the prices of everyday items, according to a report from the Economist Intelligence Unit. Singapore fell to fourth place as foreign workers left the country after losing their jobs. The research was based on the prices of 138 everyday goods and services in around 130...

One in 3 South Koreans picked the outbreak of a new disease as the biggest source of social anxiety this year, a survey showed, underscoring people‘s jitters over the new coronavirus pandemic. The poll by Statistics Korea showed that 32.8 percent of those surveyed said they considered the outbreak of a new disease to be the biggest threat to society, sharply up 29.9 percentage points from 2.9 ...

Nearly half of the population in South Korea’s farming areas was aged 65 and older last year as younger people flocked to cities for education and jobs, data showed. The portion of those aged 65 and above accounted for 46.6 percent of the total population residing in rural areas last year, sharply up from 4.9 percent in 1970, according to Statistics Korea. The number of people engaged in the...

South Korea’s exports of instant noodles and kimchi products rose sharply in the first nine months of the year on the back of rising demand for ready-to-eat meals and healthy foodstuffs amid the new coronavirus pandemic, data showed Monday. Outbound shipments of instant noodles jumped 36.3 percent on-year to $456 million during the January-September period, while those of kimchi jumped 38.5 pe...

Salaried employees in South Korea work for 8.05 hours on average per work day, a poll showed. According to the survey of 1,000 workers aged between 19 and 55 by local pollster Embrain Public, 811 respondents said they stay at work for more than 8 hours per weekday, with 54.7 percent of them saying their overtime is caused by excessive workload. Another 30 percent said they work longer than 8 h...

North Korea’s urban population increased this year compared with five years ago, with more than 60 percent of its total population now living in urban areas, though the figure is still one of the lowest in the region, a UN report showed. According to the “World Cities Report” by UN-Habitat, the number of North Koreans living in urban areas, including the capital city of Pyongyang, came to 16.1...

The proportion of babies born to multicultural families out of all childbirths in South Korea reached an all-time high in 2019 due to the country‘s low birthrate, government data showed. The number of babies born to multicultural married couples came to 17,939 last year, down 0.8 percent from a year earlier and accounting for 5.9 percent of total newborns in the country, according to the data ...

Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors ranked fourth in global electrified vehicle sales last year, helped by increased exports, industry data showed. Hyundai and Kia sold a combined 350,000 electrified models in global markets in 2019, up 25 percent from a year earlier, the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association said in a statement. Toyota, Tesla and Honda claimed the top three plac...

The cumulative number of asylum applications filed in South Korea has topped 70,000, government data showed. According to data from the Korea Immigration Service, there have been 70,254 asylum-seekers here dating from 1994, when the government began to compile relevant data, to August this year. The number of asylum-seekers totaled a mere 5,069 between 1994 and 2012, but began to rise sharpl...

Nearly half of South Koreans believe that there will be no major impact on inter-Korean relations when US President-elect Joe Biden takes office early next year, a poll showed. In the Realmeter survey of 500 people aged 18 or older nationwide conducted Nov. 6 on prospects for Seoul-Pyongyang relations during Biden’s term, 48.8 percent said there would be “little difference.” Only 16.4 percen...

The number of people of foreign descent residing in South Korea exceeded 2.22 million as of November last year, marking an on-year increase of about 8 percent, government data showed. According to the data released by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the 2,216,612 resdents account for 4.3 percent of the nation‘s entire population of 51,779,203. The tally of foreign residents includes...

A stalwart of American political life for decades, Joe Biden, 77, has experienced many ups and downs during his long career in Washington. But in the end he won the biggest prize of all - the presidency - after edging out President Donald Trump. (AFP)

The race for the White House continues to break new ground and set records in 2020 - on early voting, ad spending and more. These figures break down the campaign in numbers.