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Tag: Korea

  • Duty-free on arrival set for Incheon next year

    Duty-free on arrival set for Incheon next year

    The country’s first duty-free store available to returning travelers will open at Incheon International Airport as early as next May, the Finance Ministry announced.

    Currently, duty-free purchases are allowed only for passengers departing Korea, either at an international airport or in advance at city locations with the goods available for pick-up at the departure terminal.

    “The number of people traveling abroad has been on the rise and they’ve been grappling with the inconvenience of carrying products purchased duty-free throughout the whole trip,” the Ministry of Economy and Finance said in a statement released.

    “[Duty-free on arrival] is aimed to end that inconvenience and prompt consumers to spend more inside the country instead of shopping duty-free overseas.”

    The statement added that duty-free on arrival is now already available at 149 airports in 73 countries.

    Cigarettes, a duty-free steady seller, will not be allowed for sale at on-arrival stores, the ministry said.

    “The price of cigarettes differs greatly at duty-frees and local retailers,” said a source at the Finance Ministry. “People could buy lots of them at arrival gates and resell them in Korea at a price cheaper than the official retail price.”

    The same abuse could be possible with cigarettes purchased at departure duty-frees, but the source added that “generally speaking, it’s inconvenient [to buy cigarettes there for resale] because they have to be carried throughout the trip and, in such cases, the purpose is mainly personal, either for the consumers themselves to smoke during the trip or as gifts.”

    Fruits and meat products that must be declared for quarantine are also banned from arrival duty-free stores.

    The Finance Ministry also reminded travelers that the purchase limit for duty-free products for Koreans returning home remains unchanged at US$600.

    Larger duty-free brands that operate stores in the city and departure gates argued the need to raise that limit if the government wanted to grant licenses for stores at the airport’s opposite end.

    Bidding for licenses to run duty-free spaces at Incheon International Airport’s arrival gates will be held between March and May of next year.

    Only small and mid-sized companies are allowed to submit business plans, leaving out industry leaders such as Lotte, Shilla and Shinsegae Duty Free.

    Operations at on-arrival duty-free stores are planned to start between late May and June. After a six-month trial run at Incheon, the government will look into expanding duty-free on arrival at other international airports in the country.

    This announcement puts an end to a 15-year debate. Consumers support the idea: 81 percent of respondents to a government survey last month complained about carrying duty-free goods while traveling.

    Since 2003, lawmakers have proposed to begin duty-free on arrival six times, but all the initiatives failed in the face of opposition from current operators and airlines. Current tax law allows duty-free purchases only on departure, so National Assembly action would be required as part of setting up a new system.

    President Moon Jae-in urged quick changes to the current system in August, citing a $13.7 billion tourism deficit last year.

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  • Samsung cleans up its cross-shareholding web

    Samsung cleans up its cross-shareholding web

    Samsung Group affiliates sold off shares in each other’s companies on Friday in a major step toward revamping the conglomerate’s governance structure and removing its byzantine web of cross-shareholding.

    Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance put 2.61 million shares, or 1.37 percent, of Samsung C&T for sale at a suggested price of 328.5 billion won ($294.3 million) through a block deal. Samsung Electro-Mechanics had 5 million shares in the company, equivalent to 2.61 percent, which it aimed to sell at 642.5 billion won.

    The main buyers were institutional investors, industry sources said. They purchased each Samsung C&T share for 122,000 won, 5 percent down from the previous day’s closing price. This will leave Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance with 319.3 billion won and Samsung Electro-Mechanics with 610 billion won.

    The sell-offs put an end to the conglomerate’s long history of cross-shareholding in which companies in a group own shares in other companies. In Korea, the tactic is often used by a conglomerate’s owner family to tighten its ownership across affiliates without directly owning shares in each.

    Samsung, the country’s largest conglomerate, originally had six affiliates forming a complicated spoke-and-axle structure with Samsung C&T at the center. The other five companies were Samsung Electronics, Samsung SDI, Samsung Life Insurance, Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance and Samsung Electro-Mechanics.

    Its first step toward breaking the structure came in April, when Samsung SDI sold off 4.04 million shares worth 559.9 billion won in Samsung C&T. This effectively terminated three out of seven cross-shareholding arrangements that existed across affiliates. Friday’s sell-off cut off the remaining four.

    Industry analysts expected Samsung C&T to buy back the shares sold by the two affiliates, but all of them were sold to outside investors through block deals, a form of transaction in which two parties agree on a price outside the stock market. Samsung SDI also sold its shares to institutional investors in a block deal in April.

    The current administration under President Moon Jae-in has sent multiple warnings to Samsung to resolve its cross-shareholding structure. It was one of Moon’s pledges when he ran for office last year.

    As for Samsung’s Lee family, the effect on their ownership inside the group is minimal. Its members, including the ailing patriarch Lee Kun-hee and his son Lee Jae-yong currently own 33 percent of Samsung C&T, the group’s de facto holding company. Friday’s sell-off of 3.98 percent in the affiliate won’t make much difference.

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  • LG U+ adds Google Assistant to its IPTV

    LG U+ adds Google Assistant to its IPTV

    Unlike its telecom service competitors SK Telecom and KT, LG U+, the smallest of the three, is taking a two-track strategy when it comes to voice commands for its internet protocol TV (IPTV) service.

    LG U+ said on Wednesday that it will enable its customers to use Google Assistant for its IPTV set-top box. Subscribers to LG U+ IPTV service can use Google’s AI voice assistant to watch YouTube on TV, launch the Google Photos app as well as use translate and search features with a remote control specifically devoted to Google Assistant.

    Searching for videos on YouTube and viewing photos on smart TVs is hardly new for owners of the latest smart TVs, but using a remote control for real-time translation on a TV is a unique feature.

    “We plan to continue expanding the fields of cooperation with Google that began in 2012,” said Won Kang-hoon, leader of the IPTV partnership service team at LG U+.

    LG U+, an affiliate of LG Electronics, already joined forces with top domestic search engine and portal operator Naver last December to let its customers use Naver’s Clova AI platform for its cable TV service. The telecom operator even tied Clova Friends, an AI speaker, with its subscription services as part of a joint promotion.

    LG U+ IPTV subscribers, who total around 2 million, can use both Clova and Google Assistant. But the telecom has yet to decide whether to link the Google Home AI speaker with its IPTV service.

    SK Telecom and KT, the two largest telecom operators in Korea, have been building their own AI voice command platform. The former has Nugu and the latter has Giga Genie. Other tech firms, such as Samsung Electronics and Naver, have theirs as well. LG U+’s affiliate LG Electronics has its own ThinQ platform, but as of now it only works with home appliances and smartphones.

    LG U+ first released a set-top box equipped with the Google TV operating system in 2012. Four years later, it let subscribers watch some curated YouTube video content. Last August, LG U+ began offering YouTube Kids content to subscribers.

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  • Decathlon opened first Korean store

    Decathlon opened first Korean store

    The first Decathlon South Korea store has opened.

    The French-headquartered sports goods retailer is rapidly expanding its Asian footprint, last year opening its first store in Indonesia and in January planning its fourth Singapore store, a 5000sqm flagship.

    The new Decathlon South Korea store is takes up 7800sqm in Songdo, near Seoul. Its opening early this month coincides with the launch of its South Korean e-commerce platform. Four more outlets are in the works to be opened within two years.

    Stephane Guy, CEO of Decathlon South Korea, said: “Songdo is a sports city. There are many parks where we can run, walk and we have many families living here too. It‘s exactly what we wanted.”

    Decathlon operates 1415 stores in 47 countries.

  • Ministop South Korea is for sale, rivals compete

    Ministop South Korea is for sale, rivals compete

    South Korean retail operators Lotte and Shinsegae are competing to buy the 21-year-old local subsidiary of Japanese convenience-store operator Ministop.

    Shinsegae and Lotte respectively own rival chains Emart24 and 7-Eleven and are both reportedly seeking to take full ownership of Ministop South Korea. Both companies see the deal as a means to grow their respective businesses in a market where convenience-store penetration has reached saturation point, limiting opportunities for organic network growth.

    7-Eleven currently operates 9535 stores across South Korea and Emart24 3413. The Ministop network numbers just 2535.

    Japan’s Aeon, which owns the Ministop brand, owns a majority 76 per cent of the South Korean business.

    Daesang group owns 20 per cent and Mitsubishi the balance. Aeon has appointed Nomura Securities to find a buyer for the business as it sees little future for the convenience store brand in South Korea, a highly competitive market. Instead, Aeon is looking to Southeast Asian markets for growth, including Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.

    Last year, Ministop South Korea sales totalled 1.18 trillion won (US$1 billion), ranking it fourth in revenue terms behind GS25, CU and 7-Eleven.

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  • Samsung expected to post record operating profit

    Samsung expected to post record operating profit

    Samsung Electronics is expected to post a record operating profit of 17.2 trillion won ($15.4 billion) in the third quarter, backed by firm demand for memory chips, market sources said Tuesday.

    The consensus by major brokerage firms marks an 18.5 percent on-year increase in the tech behemoth’s profit for the July-September period.

    The revenue is forecast at 65.2 trillion won, up 5.1 percent from a year ago.

    The company is expected to release its third-quarter earnings preview next Friday.

    The world’s top smartphone maker logged a record high 65.9 trillion won in sales in the fourth quarter of last year and a record high of 15.6 trillion won in operating profit in the first quarter of this year.

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  • Delpozo to arrive in South Korea with KLH International

    Delpozo to arrive in South Korea with KLH International

    Spanish luxury designer brand Delpozo has entered into a partnership with South Korean firm KLH International to open six locations in South Korea.

    Two of the Delpozo South Korea stores have already begun trading, with the third opening shortly. The remaining three are planned to launch within two years.

    The first Delpozo South Korea store in Seoul, at 63sqm, launched September 14 at the Lotte World Tower. The second location in Lotte Busan measures 57sqm and opened five days after Seoul. The third – and largest at 100sqm – opens early next month in Hyundai Mainwill.

    Grupo Perfumes y Diseno has owned the Delpozo brand since 2013. The company’s president and owner Pedro Trolez said the partnership marks further expansion in the Asian market.

    “We are very excited about opening the first three locations, with more expected for the next two years,” he said.

    KLH International CEO Thomas Hahn said the launch will “give a new impulse into the stagnant women’s clothing market”.

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  • Korea’s Goobne Chicken enters Malaysian market

    Korea’s Goobne Chicken enters Malaysian market

    South Korean fast-food chain Goobne Chicken has expanded into Malaysia, opening its first outlet in My Town Shopping Center.

    The brand plans to test the market under a franchise agreement with a local partner and has chosen its first location at one of the city’s largest shopping malls, housing more than 400 retail and dining options.

    Located on the fourth floor, the 115sqm store can seat 64.

    “Our employees in overseas management, product development and marketing departments have performed a thorough market study for the Malaysian entry,” said a Goobne Chicken spokesperson.

    “We plan to win over Malaysian consumers with our locally-tailored menu and marketing campaign.”

    Goobne operates 12 outlets overseas, including in Hong Kong, Macao, Japan and Indonesia.

    The company says it will open its first Vietnam restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City in November.

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  • Hyundai Motor hydrogen trucks are going to Europe

    Hyundai Motor hydrogen trucks are going to Europe

    Hyundai Motor’s hydrogen-powered truck will take to the streets of Europe, where the hydrogen infrastructure is better than in Korea and subsidies for hydrogen cars more generous.

    The nation’s No.1 carmaker announced Thursday that it signed a memorandum of understanding with Swiss hydrogen energy company H2 Energy to supply 1,000 large hydrogen trucks from 2019 to 2023.

    They will include both refrigerated and unrefrigerated cargo trucks. H2 Energy will lease the trucks to local gas station companies and grocery franchises.

    Under the partnership, Hyundai Motor and H2 Energy will try to expand the use of hydrogen-powered trucks not only in Switzerland but all over Europe.

    “The MOU with H2 Energy allowed Hyundai Motor’s hydrogen trucks to advance into the European eco-friendly commercial vehicle market,” said Lee In-cheol, executive vice president of Hyundai Motor’s commercial car team.

    The hydrogen-powered trucks being sent to Europe from next year are based on Hyundai Motor’s flagship large-sized Xcient truck. The development is near completion, Hyundai Motor says, to meet local transportation regulations.

    The trucks will have 190 kW fuel-cell batteries.

    They are expected to have a range of 400 kilometers (259 miles) per charge, which will take about 7 minutes.

    In terms of safety features, they will have forward collision avoidance and lane departure warning systems.

    Hyundai Motor explained that it is initiating its hydrogen truck business in Europe rather than Korea due to better infrastructure and state support as well as rising demand.

    State support comes in various ways in European countries. Germany, for example, offers subsidies, while the Netherlands and Norway give tax incentives to people who purchase eco-friendly vehicles.

    Switzerland, the first market for Hyundai Motor’s hydrogen-powered Xcients, has eliminated tolls on 3.5-ton or heavier trucks that run on eco-friendly engines. Trucks powered by diesel engines, in contrast, have to pay heavy tolls.

    The carmaker plans to launch a midsized truck fueled by hydrogen in the near future that could be used for road cleaning or collecting garbage.

  • Seoul Design Cloud to promote city as design hub of Asia

    Seoul Design Cloud to promote city as design hub of Asia

    Seoul is promoting itself as Asia’s leading design hub with a series of design-related events.

    Hosted by the Seoul Design Foundation, Seoul Design Cloud, a mega design event comprising Seoul Design Week, Seoul Upcycling Week and Seoul Fashion Week – different from the biannual fashion event – kicked off Monday at Dongdaemun Design Plaza.

    “With Dongdaemun Design Plaza as the center, Seoul’s design will take a leap. And Seoul Design Cloud will show the way,” Choi Kyung-ran, the head of the Seoul Design Foundation, said at a press event on the opening day.

    Seoul Design Cloud is being held at the DDP – which is also being used as the main press center for the inter-Korean summit – through September 26.

    “DDP will receive attention (from around the world). We hope that through this opportunity, (the venue) can grab people’s attention,” Choi said.

    The 10-day event kicked off with the Human City Design Seoul conference, which discusses the city’s future in terms of design-related aspects.

    At the conference, Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon spoke as a social designer, suggesting Seoul move on as a design city. A related exhibition is being held at the DDP during the period of the event, introducing cases from 21 cities in which design has made people’s lives better.

    Ahn Gi-hyun, the head curator of the exhibition, and his team gathered examples from around the world, and contacted cities to receive videos that are being shown at individual kiosks.

    “Seoul See You Tomorrow Pyeongyang” is an exhibition that celebrates cooperation and harmony between the two Koreas and hopes to link the two capital cities beyond physical and political boundaries.

    Around 41 graphic designers and illustrators from Korea and abroad participated in creating artworks that imagine what the two cities would be like in 2030, using mainly the colors of red and blue.

    Meanwhile, young student designers will showcase 100 new hanbok designs on Sunday at Changdeokgung, with student models wearing the designs walking around the palace garden. The outfits were shown to the public on Monday at a fashion show in line with the opening of Seoul Design Cloud.

    During the event period, a market will also be held at DDP to introduce local brands based in the Dongdaemun area, the fashion hub of Seoul.

    With Seoul Design Cloud covering a broad spectrum of design with diverse events, from conferences to markets, questions were raised at the press conference about the identity of the event.

    “We have obtained some fundamental results by cooperating with the Seoul Metropolitan Government on the topic of city revitalization,” said Jun Gi-hyun, an official from the Seoul Design Foundation, in response to the question.

    “Regarding design, there are numerous things happening. It is our role to show everything to the people, allowing them to be inspired,” he added.

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  • Hyundai Mobis makes autonomous car radar

    Hyundai Mobis makes autonomous car radar

    Hyundai Mobis said Thursday that it developed its own short-range radar system for use in autonomous cars and plans to offer the system to local automakers from 2020.

    Radar can be used as an object detection system to help self-driving cars avoid collisions. The company said it is the first local firm to develop this type of radar on its own.

    The short-range radar developed by the auto parts maker is used for blind-spot collision warnings, a driver assistance service that alerts drivers of a potential collision with a car behind it, depending on the position and speed of the car to the rear.

    According to Hyundai Mobis, its radar works twice as fast as existing systems and detects objects 1.5 times further away. The hardware for the system weighs roughly 120 grams (4.2 ounces), half the amount of existing devices, the company said.

    Local automakers have been depending on imports for object detection systems and the Hyundai Motor affiliate said its system can replace imported radar.

    The parts maker’s goal is to develop four different radar systems used in self-driving cars within this year. To develop high-performance long range radar, the company is working with two German radar companies.

    According to Hyundai Mobis, the market for radar systems for cars will grow by an average of 20 percent every year to reach 20 trillion won ($17.8 billion) by 2023.

    Gregory Baratoff, the vice president of Hyundai Mobis’ DAS engineering group, said the company will soon introduce video recognition technology and sensor fusion technology that integrates data collected from different sensors with the ultimate goal of developing parts for fully autonomous cars, in a statement Thursday.

    To expand its sensor portfolio by 2020, the company said it will secure technologies to develop all types of sensors used in self-driving cars.

  • Kia to hire 1,300 of its contractors’ workers

    Kia to hire 1,300 of its contractors’ workers

    Kia Motors will directly hire 1,300 employees at its contractors by next year in response to the Moon Jae-in administration’s goal of reducing the number of contract workers, the carmaker announced on Thursday.

    If it completes the transition, Kia Motors will have directly hired all contracted workers at its factories. Since 2015, Korea’s No. 2 carmaker has already directly hired 1,087 employees of its contractors as of this June.

    “The latest agreement between management and the labor union lives up to the current administration’s initiative on [improving the work environment for] contract workers,” the company said in a written statement Thursday. “The management and the union preemptively approached the issue and came out with a solution.”

    The agreement, which was made at Kia Motors’ Sohari factory in Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi, on Wednesday comes two weeks after the Ministry of Labor announced that it is considering mediating the employment issue between Kia Motors and its contracted workers. Until recently, Hyundai Motor Group avoided negotiating directly with contracted workers, as it already had its hands full dealing with its permanent employees.

    In July, however, a committee dedicated to reforming unfair administrative issues at Ministry of Labor advised the ministry to resolve an illegal dispatch of workers issue at Hyundai Motor Group. In response, the labor ministry recently told the carmaker to directly negotiate with the contracted workers at its company.

    Kia Motors’ bigger affiliate, Hyundai Motor, has already been working on the issue since 2017. In 2017, the carmaker directly hired some 6,000 employees from its subcontractors. From 2018 to 2021, the carmaker also promised to directly hire an additional 3,500 employees.

    “The latest agreement will put an end once and for all to the issue of contractors’ employees at Kia Motors,” said an official from the carmaker.

    In 2015, Kia Motors’ contract workers’ unit of the Korean Metal Workers’ Union sued Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Mong-koo and Kia Motors CEO Park Han-woo for violating regulations on dispatched workers, but the case has not been decided yet.

  • SK buys 9.5% stake in Vietnam’s Masan Group

    SK buys 9.5% stake in Vietnam’s Masan Group

    SK Group will acquire a 9.5 percent stake in Vietnamese food and beverage company Masan Group to become its largest foreign shareholder.

    The Korean conglomerate announced Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire the stake at $470 million. The two companies will jointly look for business opportunities in Vietnam through strategic investments.

    Masan Group is at the top of the Vietnamese food and beverage market. Its business portfolio expands into finance, animal breeding and mineral mining. Its yearly revenue posted 1.9 trillion won ($1.7 billion) last year.

    “The latest investment is meaningful in a way that it is part of the group’s effort to secure new business opportunity in the global markets just like Chairman Chey Tae-won emphasized in his New Year speech early this year,” said Lee Hang-soo, head of the group’s PR team in a statement Wednesday.

    “SK Group and Masan Group will cooperate to develop new businesses in Vietnam as well as elsewhere in the Southeast Asia region,” he added.

    SK Group has been showing keen interest in fortifying its global business over the past few years.

    SK has been looking for business opportunities in the United States, China and Southeast Asia. The group had established a new investment arm in Singapore based on joint investment from its five subsidiaries.

  • KT signs partnership to build AI hotels in Vietnam

    KT signs partnership to build AI hotels in Vietnam

    KT said Tuesday that it inked a partnership with Vietnam’s largest construction company, Hoa Binh Construction Group, to build artificial intelligence-equipped hotels and smart cities.

    Based on the partnership, the two companies plan to install AI services in hotels and apartments in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries. In the longer term, the two hope to expand the cooperation to create smart cities featuring digital technologies.

    KT has already created an AI hotel in Korea earlier this year by installing smart speakers customized for hotels in rooms at the Novotel Ambassador Hotel & Residences in Dongdaemun, eastern Seoul. Hotel guests can use a version of KT’s GiGA Genie smart speaker to turn on lights, change TV channels and order more towels from the front desk.

  • Naver to contribute 99 billion won to venture capital fund

    Naver to contribute 99 billion won to venture capital fund

    Naver is contributing 99 billion won ($88 million) to a 100 billion won venture capital fund devoted to fostering and investing in start-ups, the top internet portal announced Tuesday.

    The fund is being launched by TBT, a venture capital firm founded by Lee Ram, a former CEO of Camp Mobile, a mobile app development subsidiary that merged earlier this year with Naver. TBT is coughing up the remaining 1 billion won to create TBT Global Growth No. 1 Investment Cooperative. The fund is meant to find and support companies with growth potential in the global market.

    TBT was established at the end of August by Lee and another executive with capital of 2 billion won.

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