SEOUL, April 25 (Korea Bizwire) – SK Innovation Co., South Korea’s top oil refiner, on Tuesday said its first-quarter earnings surged from a year earlier, thanks to better-than-expected results from its petrochemical business. Net profit stood at 859 billion won (US$757 million) on a consolidated basis in the first quarter of the year, compared with [...]
SEOUL, April 24 (Korea Bizwire) – Jeju Air, a South Korean low-cost carrier (LCC), will expand its fleet size to 32 planes by December with the aim of serving 10 million passengers annually, the company said Monday. On Sunday, the 29th plane ordered by the Jeju Island-based budget carrier arrived at Gimpo International Airport. The [...]
BUSAN, April 21 (Korea Bizwire) – Global shipping companies have reduced their calls at South Korean ports despite adding more worldwide services, partly a result of Hanjin Shipping going bankrupt, a research organization said Friday. Four different shipping alliances have been realigned into three major players — 2M, The Alliance and Ocean Alliance — in [...]
SEOUL, April 21 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean low-cost carriers Air Busan and T’way Air will set up new routes to Japanese cities as part of efforts to offset declines in demand from China, the companies said Friday. The number of Chinese travelers has sharply declined following the ban on all travel packages to South [...]
SEOUL, April 19 (Korea Bizwire) – Budget telecommunications networks continue to report losses nearly six years after they first appeared following an agreement with major mobile network operators in the South Korean market, despite a growing number of customers. According to the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIF), the so-called budget telecommunications networks, widely known [...]
SEOUL, April 19 (Korea Bizwire) – The latest data from the Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency showed that six out of ten medical disputes filed by foreigners were from Chinese nationals, with plastic surgery leading in terms of medical specialties. According to the data, the agency had 598 consultation cases from foreign patients [...]
SEOUL, April 18 (Korea Bizwire) – As the weather warms up in South Korea, major convenience store chains are releasing new spring and summer products ranging from iced tea and caffe lattes to plastic cups filled with ice cubes to drink a cold beverage out of. The market for ice products in the convenience store [...]
SEOUL, April 17 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s advertising market reached 14.7 trillion won (US$12.95 billion) last year, with more than 70 percent of it dominated by the top three firms, an industry study showed Monday. Last year’s market size is 8.1 percentage points bigger than the previous year’s 13.7 trillion won, according to the [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean duty-free shops’ sales fell 19 percent in March from a month earlier due to China’s retaliation against the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system here, government data showed Sunday. Overall sales in domestic duty-free stores declined to 1.06 trillion won (US$930 million) in March from the previous [...]
SEOUL, April 14 (Korea Bizwire) — Self-service digital interactive kiosks are among the emerging technologies that are rapidly redesigning the landscape of South Korea’s service industry. With their convenience and cost-effectiveness, an increasing number of companies in various fields are adopting digital kiosk systems including fast food restaurant chains, banks, cinemas, and convenience stores. Though digital [...]