Two Korean companies -- Naver Webtoon and Yanolja -- are preparing for a US stock debut this year, seeking higher valuation and aggressive overseas expansion. Their US push comes after Coupang’s successful Nasdaq listing in 2021 when the company was valued at $63 billion, the biggest IPO in the US by a foreign company since Alibaba Group in 2014. Industry watchers agree that the market sentiment has changed over the past three years following the bursting of pandemic-bubble stocks. But the

Industry June 13, 2024

Korean software developer Tmax Group on Thursday unveiled a groundbreaking super-app platform, Gaia, which allows users to create apps without coding skills, declaring a new era of digital transformation. “There have been numerous attempts to achieve great IT integration, but no one has been able to achieve effective integration in the right way,” Chairman and CTO Park Dae-yeon said during a press conference held in Seoul. “The IT grand integration presented by Tmax refers to i

Technology June 13, 2024

SK Telecom said Wednesday that it is seeking to merge its fabless unit Sapeon with Korea-based chip designer Rebellions, as part of its renewed push for artificial intelligence chips. The merger push is the result of an agreement between the two sides to create a “homegrown company” to lead the global AI race, the telecom giant said. The market for neural processing units powering AI services is growing rapidly, driven by the widespread adoption of AI across industries. Competition i

Industry June 12, 2024

Korean IT giant Kakao, having suffered from its worst-ever server shutdown in October 2022, unveiled its first in-house data center in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, to local media Tuesday. As part of Kakao's efforts to keep users' daily lives safe, this data center is the first one of its kind to maximize stability. Located on a 47,378-square-meter site, about 2.6 times the size of a soccer field, Kakao Data Center Ansan is situated in Hanyang University’s ERICA campus in the industr

Technology June 12, 2024

South Korean tech firms and a local research center were recognized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity, on Monday, for their significant contribution to commercializing the world's first code division multiple access network used in mobile phones in 1996. The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Samsung Electronics, LG E

Technology June 10, 2024

Instagram has significantly widened its lead over domestic top search engine Naver regarding usage hours among Korean smartphone users, data showed Sunday. According to data compiled by industry tracker Wiseapp, Korean users spent 389 million hours on Instagram, making it the third-most used app in the country in May, surpassing Naver by 46.41 million hours. Instagram had already outstripped Naver in April, maintaining the third-most used smartphone app position here for two consecutive months

Industry June 9, 2024

Samsung Electronics executives have been actively purchasing treasury shares to prop up the price, which has struggled to break out of the 70,000 won ($50.70) range. Six executives at the tech giant have collectively acquired 15,490 shares of the company’s stock this month, which amounts to 1.15 billion won, according to DART, the Financial Supervisory Service's electronic disclosure board, on Sunday. Park Hak-kyu, president of management support, purchased 5,500 common shares of Sams

Industry June 9, 2024

DAEJEON -- Oh Jun-ho, founder of Rainbow Robotics and a former mechanical engineering professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, underscored the future of robots lies in artificial intelligence technology. “Robots are ready to do anything, but on their own, they can’t do anything. Bringing movement to them requires human touch like programming, but in the future, AI will be able to take on that role,” he said in his speech at Innovate Korea 2024, hel

Technology June 7, 2024

DAEJEON -- Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon highlighted how sincerely the IT giant is approaching the burgeoning artificial intelligence technologies in her speech at Innovate Korea 2024, held in Daejeon on Wednesday. “AI technology is a game changer which is developing rapidly, although it also stirs up several concerns,” she said. “Naver has been sincere about AI and we’ve been putting much effort into making a perfect Korean-language AI model.” The Naver chief pointed out

Technology June 7, 2024

Korean telecommunications giant KT Corp. said Tuesday it has forged a strategic partnership with Microsoft to enhance ties on artificial intelligence, among others. The new partnership, aiming at jointly developing AI, cloud and IT services tailored for the Korean market, was sealed at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on Monday, with KT CEO Kim Young-shub and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in attendance. With details of the partnership coming in September, this is the first

Technology June 4, 2024

Competition in the growing foldable smartphone market is set to get fiercer. Samsung Electronics is out to regain market leadership with a new foldable phone series next month, while Chinese rivals are trying to catch up with the Korean tech giant’s market dominance in the sector. Lenovo-owned Motorola has reportedly passed the Chinese government’s certification and is expected to roll out its new flagship foldable phone, Razr 50 Ultra, within the next month, according to industry so

Technology June 3, 2024

Naver Webtoon, also known as Webtoon Entertainment in the US, has kicked off the initial public offering process, as it filed a registration statement with the US Securities Exchange Commission for listing on the Nasdaq market. Despite the unsettled atmosphere within Naver due to recent controversies surrounding its ownership of Line, the messaging app popular in Japan, the webtoon unit aims to complete its Nasdaq stock listing no later this year. Webtoon Entertainment submitted the statement on

Industry June 2, 2024

As humans are increasingly associating with artificial intelligence at home and in the workplace, global tech experts gathered Thursday at this year's EmTech Korea to discuss what these technologies might look like in the next decade. Orchestrated by the MIT Technology Review, the annual conference aimed at exploring the fusion of global technology trends and industries took place at the Coex convention and exhibition center in Seoul for the first time. In a panel discussion moderated by Ka

Technology May 30, 2024

Jun Young-hyun, the new head of Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor business, called Thursday for unity among management and employees to retain its leadership in the ever-evolving chip industry. “Samsung’s semiconductor business has 50 years of history and has maintained the No. 1 position in memory. We have secured unrivaled technological assets by overcoming numerous crises and challenges,” he said in his inauguration message posted on the company’s internal bulle

Technology May 30, 2024

Unionized workers of Samsung Electronics said Wednesday that they would go on strike next week after failed wage talks with the management -- the first-ever strike in the tech giant’s five decades of history. "We can’t stand persecution against labor unions anymore. We declare a strike due to the management's attitude of disregarding the workers," the Nationwide Samsung Electronics Union, the largest among Samsung's multiple unions, said in a press briefing held i

Industry May 29, 2024