SEOUL, Jan. 3 (Korea Bizwire) – Woongjin Corp. said Wednesday it will re-enter the water purification business, five years after it sold off South Korea’s top water purification maker amid financial difficulties. In 2013, then cash-strapped Woongjin sold a 30.9 percent stake in Woongjin Coway Co. for about 1.2 trillion won (US$1 billion) to MBK [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of people attending a stop smoking program at Saint Mary’s Hospital in Seoul rose this year from 2017 amid rising cigarette prices and the expansion of nonsmoking zones, a hospital official said Wednesday. As many as 26 people have applied for the stop smoking camp run by [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean retail giant Lotte is facing a bumpy road as its latest negotiations over the sale of its hypermarket chain in China fell through, industry sources said Wednesday. In September, the business group announced its decision to pull out Lotte Mart in China after it suffered major losses [...]
SEJONG, Jan. 2 (Korea Bizwire) – Purchases made through Internet and mobile devices in South Korea continued to rise in November as use of smartphones have fully caught on with local consumers, government data showed Tuesday. Transactions made with smartphones and tablets reached 7.55 trillion won (US$7.06 billion) in the one-month period, up a solid [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 2 (Korea Bizwire) – U.S. tech giant Apple Inc.’s South Korean arm said Tuesday it will start a discounted battery replacement program amid criticism that the company intentionally slowed down older smartphones. Apple said users of the iPhone 6 and its successors will be able to replace batteries for 34,000 won (US$31.80), down [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s cosmetics industry is looking to regain growth in 2018 after taking a big hit from China’s retaliation against Seoul over a missile row this year, sources said Thursday. In March, China banned sales of group tours to South Korea in retaliation against Seoul’s decision to deploy an [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — Experts in the United States and Japan have picked LG Display’s organic light emitting diode (OLED) TV panel as the best product, industry sources said Monday, citing global market reports. In a recent report released by U.S. specialist display website DisplayMate, LG OLED TV was selected as a product [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 22 (Korea Bizwire) — The president of BlackBerry Mobile expressed confidence on Friday that his company can grab South Korean consumers with the BlackBerry KEYOne Black Edition, but it remains unclear whether the entry-level premium smartphone can make a dent in a country dominated by Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc. Alain Lejeune said [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 22 (Korea Bizwire) – The Samsung Fashion Institute (SFI) announced the results of its review of the 10 major issues that impacted the fashion industry this year and its future outlook for next year on December 21. The conclusion was that 2017 was a year to forget, as the anti-nuclear power plant movement [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 21 (Korea Bizwire) — The combined sales of high-end smartphones in South Korea hit record-high levels in November, industry data showed Thursday, following the popularity of the Galaxy Note 8 and new iPhones. According to the data, South Korea’s three mobile carriers sold 1.4 million units of smartphones priced 700,000 won (US$648) and [...]