Homeplus will sell cars and install electric vehicle charging stations, as part of its efforts to provide more reasons for customers to visit its physical stores other than grocery shopping, the hypermarket chain said Monday. Homeplus’ plans for the new mobility service platform cover a wide range of services, and it is currently taking preorders for two electric motorcycles from DNA Motors -- EM-1 and Zappy 1 -- and preparing to launch a rental service, the company said. “By of

Samsung Electro-Mechanics officials present its folded, 10x optical zoom camera module for smartphones. The company on Monday announced it will begin mass production of the technology, claiming to be the first South Korean maker to do so. Folded zoom technology allows phone makers to minimize the camera’s protrusion in smartphones.  By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)

Statistics Korea’s data on Monday showed the male ratio at birth in South Korea fell to the lowest level last year, implicating the end of the country’s long-held tradition of boy preference. The gender ratio at birth, or the number of baby boys per every 100 baby girls born, stood at 104.9 in 2020 -- the lowest since the institution started to collect related data in 1990. The figure is close to a natural level observed worldwide of about 105 boys to every 100 girls. This repres

Netflix Korea will disclose its audit reports in March, which would be its first regulatory filing since entering the country in 2016. The local unit of the US media platform giant is incorporated as a limited liability company here, but has become newly subject to disclosure rules applied for publicly traded firms. The change is due to the effectuation last year of the Enforcement Decree of the Act on External Audit of Stock Companies, amended in 2017 to enhance business transparency and p

Philip Morris Korea has won a legal battle worth billions of won against the country’s tax authority over trademark usage fees, according to legal sources. The Seoul Administrative Court on Monday ruled in favor of the South Korean unit of the international tobacco company, ordering a tax imposed by Seoul Main Customs worth 9.82 billion won ($8.7 million) to be canceled. The ruling comes four years after the Korea Customs Service ordered the company to pay some 3.4 billion won in customs

　South Korea’s online food market posted explosive growth in 2020 from a year earlier due to the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, data showed. 　The value of online food transactions in Asia's fourth-largest economy came to 43.4 trillion won ($39.2 billion) last year, up 62.4 percent from a year earlier, according to data from Statistics Korea and industry sources. 　The online food market surpassed the 40 trillion-won mark last year after reaching 26.7 trillion won the previous

Asian model’s skin darkened to make clothes ‘look even better’

Artiva Biotherapeutics, a subsidiary of South Korean pharmaceutical firm Green Cross, announced Sunday that it has secured $120 million in Series B financing to develop natural killer (NK) cell-based cancer therapies. Artiva Biotherapeutics said its new investor Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners has led the latest financing. Other new investors include Acuta Capital Partners, Cormorant Asset Management, EcoR1 Capital, Franklin Templeton, according to the company. The injection of fresh cap

Celltrion founder and Chairman Seo Jung-jin’s eldest son Seo Jin-seok is expected to obtain a seat in the company’s boardroom next month, industry sources said on Sunday. Celltrion is to finalize the appointment of the junior Seo as representative director at the shareholder meeting scheduled on March 26, the sources added. The first son has been serving as senior vice president for Celltrion since 2017. Seo Jin-seok also spearheaded Celltrion Skin Cure, the group’s cosmeti

While the COVID-19 pandemic has impeded the transfer of goods via ship, with stricter rules to limit the number of crew members boarding and coming ashore, a small South Korean venture company is offering a new kind of delivery service using drones. Marine Drone Tech, a drone logistics company based in Busan, is the first company in Korea to officially register a maritime drone delivery service. It received its business registration certificate from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Tr

With 5.5% decline, country‘s overseas performance relatively good compared to other economies

Small businesses and microenterprises that have suffered due to COVID-19 and the accompanying restrictions could be eligible for government subsidies as early as July, as the legislative process is underway. According to officials with the ruling Democratic Party of Korea and the government on Sunday, their representatives were currently fine-tuning the legal framework to offer compensation to microenterprises that had been ordered to close or scale back their operations as part of the national