LG Chem became the largest supplier of electric vehicle batteries in the first seven months of this year, data showed. Based on the global usage of EV batteries, LG Chem’s market share stood at 25.1 percent in the January-July period, compared with 10.6 percent a year earlier, according to market tracker SNE Research. The data showed that 13.4 gigawatt-hours of energy from LG Chem’s EV batte...

FRANKFURT AM MAIN (AFP) -- Germany is in a V-shaped economic recovery and should avoid a new phase of lockdowns, the economy minister said Tuesday, despite a resurgence of coronavirus cases. German GDP is expected to fall 5.8 percent in 2020, a narrower recession than the 6.3 percent drop projected earlier, Peter Altmaier said, signalling that the country is emerging from the worst of the crisis...

DETROIT (AP) -- A day after its 5-for-1 stock split took effect, Tesla is announcing plans to sell up to $5 billion worth of common shares. The electric car and solar panel maker says in a filing with securities regulators that it intends to sell up to 10.03 million shares and use the proceeds for unspecified general corporate purposes. The sales would be made "from time to time" and Tesla says...

Samsung Electronics maintained its dominant status in the global DRAM market in the second quarter of the year, a report showed, as the pandemic drove demand for server chips. The South Korean tech giant’s market share in the global DRAM market stood at 43.5 percent in the April-June period, down 0.6 percentage point from three months earlier, while its revenue increased 13.8 percent to $7.4 b...

PCs, somewhat left behind in the mobile internet age, are making a comeback as people stuck at home due to the coronavirus rely on them for work, education and entertainment, industry watchers say. Gartner and International Data Corp. reports show shipments of desktop computers, laptops and workstations grew in the second quarter as pandemic-related disruptions to the supply chain were overcom...

Amazon has overtaken Apple as the world’s most valuable brand, according to global market research conducted by Kantar. The report, titled 2019 Top BrandZ, claims the value of the e-commerce giant’s brand grew to $415 billion. Apple came second, valued at $352 billion, with Microsoft in third place at $326 billion South Korea’s Samsung had the 40th biggest value at almost $32 billion.

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.