SEOUL, Jan. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — Sales of cigarettes in South Korea rose 4.1 percent on-year last year as smokers’ purchases via duty-free channels were thwarted amid the pandemic, the finance ministry said Friday. South Korean smokers purchased 3.59 billion 20-cigarette packs last year, compared with 3.45 billion packs the previous year, according to the [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of 5G subscribers in South Korea approached nearly 12 million last year since the launch of the latest mobile network in April 2019, data showed Friday. South Korea’s 5G users stood at 11.85 million as of end-December last year, up over 900,000 from the previous month, according [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s exports of autos declined 12.1 percent on-year last year due to the fallout of the pandemic, data showed Friday. The country’s outbound shipments of cars came to $34.7 billion last year, compared with $39 billion the previous year, according to the data compiled by the Korea Customs [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — South Koreans’ consumption of rice hit a record low in 2020, data showed Thursday, due mainly to changes in diet and eating habits. The average South Korean consumed 57.7 kilograms of rice in 2020, down 2.5 percent or 1.5 kilograms from the previous year, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — Retail sales in South Korea rose 5.5 percent on-year in 2020 due to strong gains from the online segment in sync with the social distancing policy amid the unprecedented virus pandemic. The combined sales of local online shops shot up 18.4 percent in 2020 from the previous year, while [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 28 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s imports of Japanese beer plunged nearly 86 percent in 2020 due to a local boycott of goods from the neighboring country, data showed Thursday. Seoul brought in US$5.67 million worth of Japanese beer last year, down 85.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of babies born in South Korea hit a new record low in November last year, data showed Wednesday, underscoring the country’s chronic low birth rate. The number of deaths rose to the highest in 37 years, leading to the population declining for the 13th straight month, according [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — South Koreans likely spent more than 12 trillion won (US$10.9 billion) on the country’s top two food delivery services, Baedal Minjok and Yogiyo, last year amid the stay-at-home trend driven by the pandemic, data showed Tuesday. Total credit card and mobile transactions on the delivery services reached an estimated [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — Sales of imported commercial vehicles in South Korea fell 6.9 percent in 2020 from a year earlier on lower demand amid the coronavirus pandemic, an industry association said Tuesday. The number of newly registered imported commercial vehicles fell to 4,482 units last year from 4,812 a year ago, the [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — Foreigners’ building transactions in South Korea reached an all-time high in 2020, with deals soaring in the Seoul metropolitan area, data showed Tuesday. Foreigners’ transactions of housing and commercial buildings in Asia’s fourth-largest economy came to 21,048 last year, up 18.5 percent from a year earlier, according to the [...]