Journalist
Candice Kim김혜준
candicekim1121@ajupress.com
ReporterSamsung Electronics, SK hynix, LG Electronics, Olive Young, Musinsa & Semiconductor, K-Beauty
Candice Kim is a dedicated business and technology reporter specializing in the intersection of high-tech innovation and fast-paced consumer trends. Her core beats span the semiconductor, IT, cosmetics, and retail sectors, where she provides in-depth coverage of industry titans including Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, and LG Electronics, alongside leading consumer brands like Olive Young and Musinsa. Whether analyzing complex silicon supply chains or tracking the latest shifts in beauty and fashion retail, Candice is committed to delivering sharp, accurate reporting that keeps readers informed on the forces shaping today's most dynamic markets.
"Connecting the dots from silicon chips to consumer shifts."
Latest by Candice Kim
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AI slowdown may put a damper but not dent in Korean HBM demand SEOUL, September 15 (AJP) - Shares of South Korea's chip bellwethers Samsung Electronics and SK hynix turned sharply lower this week amid a growing chorus among Big Tech companies and AI developers to moderate the pace of AI advances since that could mean less work for the memory giants. The two for the time being have less to worry about as multiyear contracts could keep them busy well into 2028. Samsung said during its second-quarter earnings call in July that it expects the global memory shortage to persist through 2028, with supply constraints becoming even more severe next year. The company has signed long-term agreements with the world's five largest data center operators and was nearing agreements with another five major customers. Samsung said the contracts are generally structured on a rolling five-year basis, with an additional year added annually. Samsung ultimately aims to cover about 60 to 70 percent of its memory production capacity through long-term contracts, giving the chipmaker greater protection against short-term fluctuations in demand. SK hynix also confirmed in July that it had completed long-term agreements with around 10 key customers and was holding additional discussions with other major clients. It described the agreements as multiyear contracts designed to secure mid- to long-term supply stability. The agreements come as AI companies and cloud operators continue to demand more memory than chipmakers can readily supply. SK hynix said additional supply requests from major technology companies continued to increase as AI infrastructure spending expanded, adding that revenue generated from AI services was increasingly supporting those investments. The distinction between developing new AI models and operating existing ones could also prove important. Slowing the development of more powerful frontier models does not necessarily mean slowing the deployment of existing AI services, which require enormous computing resources for inference — the process of generating answers from already trained models. SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won has often likened the current state of AI technology to a "four-year-old child" that needs constant care, attention and training. A break in its schooling, by that analogy, would not mean unplugging the child altogether or eliminating its need for memory. Recent AI accelerators designed specifically for inference illustrate the trend. Google's TPU 8i, optimized for inference workloads, is equipped with 288 gigabytes of HBM3E, compared with 216 GB in its training-oriented TPU 8t, according to Mirae Asset Securities. The brokerage expects expanding inference workloads to broaden demand for both high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, and conventional server memory. That suggests even a moderation in the race to train ever-larger AI models may not translate directly into weaker memory consumption if the deployment and use of AI services continue to expand. Lee Byung-hoon, a professor of electrical engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology, said the debate over slowing AI development should be separated from the industry's need to expand computing hardware. "Even if there is a slowdown now, I don't think it is something that would immediately have a sensitive impact," Lee said. Lee said the current debate was primarily about how quickly software and AI models should be developed rather than a fundamental change in the need for hardware infrastructure. The longer-term risk nevertheless remains. If a slowdown in frontier AI development eventually leads hyperscalers to cut capital expenditure or reduce orders for AI accelerators, weaker demand could ultimately filter through to HBM suppliers. But the combination of multiyear supply contracts, existing memory shortages and growing inference demand means any such impact could take time to reach Samsung and SK hynix. The immediate question for the Korean chipmakers, therefore, may be less whether AI development slows and more whether the billions of dollars being spent to deploy AI infrastructure begin to slow with it. AJP Takeaways - Calls to slow AI development could weigh on Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, but multiyear supply contracts are expected to cushion the Korean memory giants from an immediate hit to demand. - Samsung expects the global memory shortage to persist through 2028 and is expanding long-term agreements, while SK hynix has secured multiyear deals with around 10 key customers. - Growing inference workloads could continue to support HBM demand even if the development of increasingly powerful frontier AI models slows. 2026-09-15 16:38:24 -
Samsung, LG to pay suppliers 1.9 trillion won early ahead of Chuseok SEOUL, September 14 (AJP) - South Korea's Samsung and LG will make a combined 1.9 trillion won ($1.4 billion) in early payments to suppliers ahead of the Chuseok holiday, seeking to ease cash-flow pressures on smaller business partners during a period of increased funding needs. Samsung said Monday that 13 affiliates, including Samsung Electronics, Samsung C&T and Samsung Biologics, will pay a combined 1.3 trillion won to suppliers about seven days earlier than scheduled. The amount is about 110 billion won more than Samsung provided ahead of last year's Chuseok holiday. LG, meanwhile, will make 600 billion won in early payments through eight affiliates, including LG Electronics, LG Energy Solution, LG Chem and LG Innotek. Payments will be made as much as 13 days ahead of schedule. Large Korean companies routinely accelerate payments to smaller suppliers ahead of major holidays, when demand for cash can rise as businesses face expenses including raw-material purchases and employee bonuses. LG also operates about 1.2 trillion won in financial support programs through seven affiliates, including funds and direct lending that allow suppliers to access interest-free or low-interest financing. Both conglomerates are taking additional measures aimed at supporting smaller businesses and local economies during the holiday period. Samsung is operating an online marketplace for employees featuring regional specialties, agricultural products and goods made by small and midsize companies that participated in Samsung Electronics' smart-factory program. Seventeen Samsung affiliates are participating in the marketplace, with employees typically purchasing about 3 billion won worth of products during the Lunar New Year and Chuseok holiday periods combined each year. LG affiliates, meanwhile, plan to provide daily necessities and conduct volunteer activities for vulnerable communities during the holiday. AJP Takeaways - Samsung and LG will separately make a combined 1.9 trillion won in early supplier payments ahead of Chuseok, including 1.3 trillion won from Samsung and 600 billion won from LG. - Samsung will bring payments forward by about seven days, while LG's eight participating affiliates will make payments as much as 13 days early. - The companies are also providing additional support to smaller businesses, including Samsung's holiday marketplace and LG's 1.2 trillion won supplier financing programs. 2026-09-14 17:25:20 -
LG bets on home-grown AI with factory-floor data edge SEOUL, September 14 (AJP) - South Korea's LG Group is preparing to put its homegrown artificial intelligence to work across production lines stretching from hair-loss materials research to home appliances, betting that industrial know-how can matter as much as sheer computing power. Its AI control tower, LG AI Research, has built the EXAONE ecosystem around models that can be tailored to specific industries, run at lower computing costs and, when necessary, operate inside corporate networks using proprietary data that general-purpose models cannot easily access. The strategy puts real-world deployment at the center of LG's AI push, targeting manufacturers, hospitals, financial institutions and research labs where security, speed and domain expertise can matter as much as raw intelligence. At the LG AI Talk Concert 2026 held Monday at LG Science Park in Seoul, the research arm put what it calls “Expert AI” at the center of that strategy, showcasing industry-specific models and applications spanning manufacturing, finance and scientific research. “The fundamental difference in the Expert AI we pursue is that the actual field and AI technology meet,” Lim Woo-hyung, co-president of LG AI Research, said. LG's argument is that industrial AI confronts problems fundamentally different from those faced by general-purpose chatbots. Factories generate vast amounts of proprietary data on production conditions, equipment and product quality. Hospitals and financial institutions handle highly sensitive information. In such settings, producing a plausible answer is not enough. “To solve problems in the field, we needed AI capable of understanding and making judgments on countless variables and even the 1 percent of exceptional cases,” Lim said. LG says its advantage lies in combining foundation-model technology with data and expertise accumulated at actual industrial sites. Across businesses ranging from electronics and components to chemicals and manufacturing, the group has access to domain-specific data, documents and know-how rarely available in public datasets. Models can be applied to those problems, refined with feedback from the field and deployed again, creating a loop between AI development and industrial operations. Since its establishment in December 2020, LG AI Research said it has tackled more than 100 industrial problems, including battery-life and capacity prediction, product-quality inspection and production and materials planning. The institute has also had 368 papers accepted by major global AI conferences and filed 1,080 patents at home and abroad. Built for the factory, not just the benchmark One of the clearest examples is EXAONE Tabular, a foundation model designed to understand relationships in structured data and make predictions from the kinds of tables widely used in industry. The model can analyze variables such as production conditions and quality measurements and make predictions even when relatively little data are available for a new task. LG says the more important distinction lies in how the model was built. Rather than simply scaling it up to maximize benchmark scores, LG focused on cutting the computing resources needed to run it while preserving enough performance for industrial use. The company said a competing tabular model from Google near the top of the same benchmark can take two to three minutes to return a result because of heavier computing requirements. EXAONE Tabular, by comparison, was designed to run on relatively modest GPU infrastructure and return results within seconds when installed on a company's own servers, although performance varies by task. The model ranked first in classification and multiclass prediction and second overall on TabArena, a global benchmark for tabular models, according to LG. For companies trying to move AI from pilot projects into everyday factory operations, those differences can translate directly into infrastructure costs and response times. The calculation is becoming more important as advanced GPUs remain scarce and costly and companies look to deploy AI at scale. George Cameron, co-founder of independent AI benchmarking firm Artificial Analysis, said the market is already moving beyond a race based solely on intelligence. “You don't just have to have the most intelligent frontier Model in the world to be useful in contributing to the ecosystem,” Cameron said. As AI moves into large-scale commercial use, efficiency is becoming increasingly important alongside intelligence, he said. LG is betting that equation will matter particularly in manufacturing, where companies may also be reluctant to send sensitive production data to outside cloud services. For security-sensitive customers, LG plans to offer on-premise deployment, allowing models to run within a company's own infrastructure. Customers prioritizing easier access can instead use cloud-based application programming interfaces, or APIs. LG said Korean companies have shown stronger interest in on-premise systems, while overseas customers tend to prefer cloud-based access. From LG factories to outside customers LG is now preparing to take its industrial AI beyond its own affiliates. EXAONE Tabular was first applied at LG Innotek, but LG AI Research said it has since drawn interest from unnamed global companies as well as pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and energy businesses. One possible use is analyzing streams of vital-sign data from intensive-care patients to predict what could happen next. Pharmaceutical manufacturers could similarly use production data to anticipate changes in drug-manufacturing processes. LG said even domestic rivals could become customers. “If Samsung wants it, we are of course willing to provide it,” Lee Hwa-young, head of AI business development at LG AI Research, said during a press briefing. Lee said LG wants the technology used more widely across Korean industry, with domain knowledge generated through broader adoption ultimately feeding back into improvements in the underlying AI. At LG Innotek, the company said its AI technology has already sharply reduced the time needed to adapt models to changing manufacturing conditions. A process that previously required more than 300 hours, or about 14 days, of retraining was cut to roughly 50 hours, an 85 percent reduction. LG is also developing EXAONE Omni-Inspect, a visual-inspection foundation model designed to cope with changes in products and manufacturing environments without requiring a new model to be trained from scratch each time. The company plans to apply the technology to an actual inspection process this year and eventually develop AI agents capable of adapting more autonomously to changing factory conditions. An AI scientist that cuts months to a day LG is applying the same domain-focused approach to scientific research. EXAONE Discovery, its AI-for-science platform, screened more than 420,000 candidate substances and identified Rhamsydil, a potential hair-care ingredient, in a single day through a project with LG Household & Health Care. LG said the conventional process of developing a new cosmetics material can take around 22 months. The company is also working with D&D Pharmatech on next-generation oral peptide drugs, while research with Vanderbilt University Medical Center is using AI to analyze pathology images, genetic information and drug-response data for cancer research. LG ultimately wants to build autonomous laboratories where AI predicts and designs new materials, robotic systems conduct experiments and the resulting data are fed back into AI to decide what experiment should come next. The same cycle — prediction, action, data collection and improvement — underpins LG's longer-term physical AI strategy. AI that reads the market In finance, LG is using EXAONE Business Intelligence to analyze both structured information such as market data and unstructured information including text. The platform analyzes roughly 8,000 listed companies in South Korea and the United States each day and generates scores predicting their share-price direction over the following four weeks, along with commentary explaining the reasoning behind the forecasts. LG launched a U.S. equity forecasting service with London Stock Exchange Group earlier this year and later expanded the technology to the Korean market with Koscom. Arman Sahovic, APAC head of Data Platform Solutions at LSEG, said one distinction is the ability to combine types of financial data investors have traditionally analyzed separately. “So this is the first time that our customers can mix both and get actionable insight,” Sahovic said. Finance, however, also raises the bar for accountability as AI becomes more deeply embedded in investment decisions. “Now as the financial world does it more and more the difference is that it has to be auditable It has to be traceable There can be no hallucinations,” Sahovic said. “If there is an insight about a particular investment you have to be able to trace back where the data is coming from.” 'Sufficiently intelligent' AI LG is not abandoning the race to build increasingly powerful general-purpose models. Its K-EXAONE series is aimed at developing frontier-level intelligence and reasoning capabilities, and executives acknowledged Monday that gaps remain between LG's current models and leading global Big Tech systems on some performance measures. But Honglak Lee, co-president and chief AI scientist at LG AI Research, said building the world's smartest model first is not LG's sole objective. The more practical question, he said, is whether AI can be sufficiently intelligent, affordable to operate and customizable for the work its users actually need done. That distinction goes to the heart of LG's strategy. The world's largest AI companies can spend billions of dollars training frontier models. LG's potential advantage lies somewhere else: decades of industrial data, manufacturing processes and specialized knowledge that cannot simply be scraped from the internet. The approach also carries a strategic dimension for South Korea, which has world-class manufacturing and semiconductor capabilities but remains dependent on foreign AI technology in many areas. Lee said the continued availability of overseas open models, including those from China, cannot be taken for granted as AI capabilities advance and cybersecurity concerns grow. Maintaining domestic AI capabilities therefore matters not only for companies but also for areas tied to national strategic interests, he said. LG's longer-term ambition is to carry that industrial intelligence into the physical world. The company is developing robot foundation models capable of understanding physical environments, making decisions and taking action, with the eventual goal of moving beyond the automation of individual machines toward factories that operate as integrated intelligent systems. In such a factory, a human could set production and quality targets while AI coordinates robots, inspection equipment and optimization systems across the plant. LG is betting that years of manufacturing data and industrial know-how can give EXAONE something even the world's largest general-purpose models cannot easily replicate: experience from the factory floor. For LG, the next stage of the AI race may therefore be less about who builds the biggest brain than whose AI can actually get the job done. AJP Takeaways - LG is betting that industrial data and domain expertise can give its EXAONE AI an edge over larger general-purpose models. - Its Expert AI strategy focuses on real-world deployment, with industry-specific models designed for computing efficiency, customization and secure on-premise use. - LG is expanding EXAONE beyond its own affiliates into manufacturing, healthcare, finance and scientific research, while remaining open to outside customers — including Samsung. 2026-09-14 17:00:20 -
Samsung finds a 'Tim Cook' who switched to Galaxy in latest Apple jab SEOUL, September 12 (AJP) - Samsung Electronics has found a Tim Cook who switched to Galaxy — just not the one running Apple. Samsung New Zealand said in a social media campaign that "Tim Cook has switched to Samsung," before clarifying that it was referring to a man from Palmerston North, New Zealand, rather than the former Apple chief executive. "A familiar name has made a new move," Samsung New Zealand said in a post, describing the Galaxy Z8 series as compelling enough to persuade users to switch regardless of their name. Cook, the New Zealander, said he had been considering the switch for some time. "Yeah, I've moved on. It felt like the right time," he said, calling his new Galaxy "the best phone I've ever had." Samsung extended the joke in a promotional video for the Galaxy Z Fold8. "Tim Cook has an announcement. And for once, it's about Galaxy," Samsung said, introducing him as "Tim Cook, Palmerston North" alongside the #SwitchToGalaxy hashtag. The campaign is deliberately tongue-in-cheek, but Samsung New Zealand said it was also intended to highlight what it described as a broader shift among local consumers. "While this campaign is tongue-in-cheek, the consumer trend behind it is real," Shannon Watts of Samsung New Zealand said. Watts said the company was seeing more New Zealand consumers switch to Samsung in search of greater flexibility and a different smartphone experience. The campaign landed as competition between Samsung and Apple moves into a new phase following Apple's entry into the foldable smartphone market. Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo, its first foldable smartphone, on Sept. 9, challenging Samsung in a category the South Korean company entered with the original Galaxy Fold in 2019. Samsung launched its latest Galaxy Z lineup this summer, including the Galaxy Z Fold8, Fold8 Ultra and Flip8. Samsung said global preorders for the new Galaxy Z series increased more than 30 percent from the previous generation. Samsung has used Apple's foldable debut as an opportunity to revive its long-running marketing rivalry with the iPhone maker, with several of its overseas operations posting advertisements and social media messages poking fun at Apple's later arrival to the category. The New Zealand campaign takes a different approach, turning the name of one of the most recognizable figures associated with Apple into the punchline: Tim Cook really did switch to Galaxy — just not that Tim Cook. AJP Takeaways - Samsung Mobile New Zealand recruited a local man named Tim Cook to promote the Galaxy Z Fold8, using his shared name with Apple's CEO as part of its latest social media campaign. - The campaign follows Apple's unveiling of its first foldable iPhone, extending an online rivalry between the two smartphone makers over who pioneered the foldable form factor. - Samsung entered the foldable smartphone market in 2019 and has repeatedly used social media to portray Apple's new iPhone Duo as a late arrival to the category. 2026-09-12 17:54:31 -
AI boom breathes new life into mature chips as DB HiTek orders surge SEOUL, September 12 (AJP) - South Korean foundry DB HiTek is emerging as a beneficiary of tightening supplies of mature semiconductors, as booming demand from China's artificial intelligence data centers and robotics industry strains global 8-inch chip production capacity. Customer demand for DB HiTek's foundry services has risen to roughly twice its available production capacity, according to DS Investment & Securities, adding to its order backlog and strengthening expectations for further price increases. The surge underscores how the global AI boom is spreading beyond cutting-edge processors and high-bandwidth memory to mature chips used for power management and other applications. Unlike advanced chips typically manufactured on 12-inch wafers, many mature semiconductors continue to rely on 8-inch production lines. Supply has become increasingly constrained as leading foundries including Taiwan's TSMC and Samsung Electronics concentrate investment on more advanced 12-inch production, while demand for power semiconductors used in AI data centers and robots grows, particularly in China. DB HiTek's factories are operating at full capacity, according to KB Securities, which expects higher utilization and previous foundry price increases to bolster the company's earnings. DB HiTek raised prices by around 5 percent in the first half of the year and implemented an additional 10 percent increase for Chinese customers for orders entering production from July 1, according to estimates from DS Investment & Securities. The July increase is expected to begin feeding into revenue from October and gradually lift the company's average selling price in the second half. Further increases could follow. KB Securities expects DB HiTek to implement a third price hike before the end of this year and two more increases next year as the imbalance between 8-inch foundry supply and demand deepens. DS Investment & Securities said DB HiTek has already secured price increases of at least 15 percent this year and sees the possibility of another increase around December. "Supply and demand for 8-inch capacity are tightening rapidly across product categories, and DB HiTek's excess orders are greater than those of its competitors," DS Investment & Securities analyst Lee Soo-rim said. Lee said customers have also become less resistant to higher prices as rivals raise their own rates, citing capacity constraints at China's SMIC and price increases by Texas Instruments. The tightening market is also raising expectations for stronger earnings. DB HiTek is projected to post third-quarter revenue of 418 billion won ($302 million) and operating profit of 117 billion won, up 11.6 percent and 45.2 percent from a year earlier, respectively, according to consensus estimates compiled by FnGuide. For the full year, KB Securities projects revenue of 1.60 trillion won and operating profit of 424.2 billion won, representing increases of 15 percent and 53 percent, respectively. The improving outlook has already been reflected in DB HiTek's shares. The stock climbed 21 percent between Sept. 1 and Sept. 10, rising from 95,000 won to 115,200 won. DB HiTek is also scheduled to cancel 592,000 treasury shares, equivalent to about 1.3 percent of its outstanding shares, in the second half of this year, adding to expectations for shareholder returns. AJP Takeaways - Demand for DB HiTek's 8-inch foundry capacity has reached roughly twice its available production capacity as AI data centers and robotics fuel demand for mature and power semiconductors, according to DS Investment & Securities. - Tightening supply has strengthened DB HiTek's pricing power, with analysts expecting additional price increases after hikes implemented earlier this year. - DB HiTek shares climbed 21 percent in the first 10 days of September, while analysts expect full factory utilization and higher foundry prices to drive sharp earnings growth. 2026-09-12 17:25:53 -
Korean singles spend $83 per date, with men paying nearly twice as much SEOUL, September 12 (AJP) - A typical date costs unmarried South Koreans 115,000 won ($83), with men spending nearly twice as much as women, a survey showed Saturday, highlighting persistent differences between the sexes over who should pick up the bill. Men aged 25 to 39 reported spending an average 145,800 won per date, compared with 84,000 won for women, according to a survey of 506 unmarried adults conducted by matchmaking agency Gayeon. The gap amounted to 61,800 won per date. The survey also found that respondents did not consider an even split necessary. When asked what they considered an appropriate division of dating expenses on a 10-point scale, respondents put men's share at 5.96 and women's at 4.04 — roughly a 60-40 split. Money was not a source of friction for most respondents, with 55.7 percent saying they had never experienced conflict over dating expenses. Some 17.8 percent said they had, including 19.7 percent of men and 15.9 percent of women. Among those who reported conflicts, 37.8 percent cited one partner paying too little or nothing as the biggest source of disagreement. Differences in spending habits and preferences over dating activities followed at 34.4 percent, while 18.9 percent pointed to demands for an equal 50-50 split despite differences in income. Disagreements over the use of joint dating accounts accounted for 7.8 percent. Men and women, however, differed over what caused the most friction. Among male respondents who had experienced conflicts, 48 percent cited differences in spending habits or preferred dating activities as the biggest issue, followed by one partner contributing too little at 36 percent. Women were more concerned about how the bill itself was divided. Forty percent cited one partner paying too little or nothing as the main source of conflict, while 30 percent pointed to demands for an equal split despite differences in income. The findings suggest that disagreements over dating expenses extend beyond the amount each partner pays, reflecting differing expectations over spending, income and what constitutes a fair financial contribution in a relationship. "Men tended to express dissatisfaction over differences in preferences and values, such as spending habits and choices of dating activities, while women were more concerned with fairness in the actual division of expenses," a Gayeon official said. "Openly discussing spending habits and how expenses will be divided early in a relationship can help prevent conflicts," the official added. AJP Takeaways - Unmarried South Koreans aged 25 to 39 spend an average 115,000 won ($83) per date, according to a survey of 506 people by matchmaking agency Gayeon. - Men reported spending 145,800 won per date, compared with 84,000 won for women, while respondents viewed a roughly 60-40 split between men and women as an appropriate way to divide dating expenses. - Men who experienced money-related conflicts were most likely to cite differences in spending habits and dating preferences, while women were more likely to point to one partner contributing too little or demands for an equal split despite income differences. 2026-09-12 17:07:44 -
Korea expands espionage law as chip technology theft concerns mount SEOUL, September 12 (AJP) - South Korea will broaden the scope of its espionage law from Sunday to cover spying for foreign countries, closing a decades-old legal gap as concerns grow over overseas theft of strategically important technologies including semiconductors. The revised Criminal Act, which takes effect Sept. 13, introduces a new provision allowing authorities to prosecute people who obtain, collect, disclose, transfer or broker national secrets for a foreign country or an equivalent organization under its direction, instigation or other communication. Those convicted under the new provision face a minimum prison term of three years. Until now, South Korea's espionage provisions have primarily targeted activities conducted on behalf of an "enemy state," a definition that in practice largely applied to North Korea. The amendment marks a significant expansion of the country's counterespionage framework at a time when Seoul is increasingly concerned about the overseas leakage of advanced technologies that underpin its export-driven economy. Semiconductors have emerged as a particularly sensitive area. South Korea is home to Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, two of the world's largest memory chipmakers, whose technologies have become increasingly strategically important as global competition intensifies over artificial intelligence and advanced computing. South Korean police detected a record 33 cases of technology leakage overseas last year, with more than half involving China. Semiconductors were the most frequently targeted industry. One of the highest-profile cases involved former Samsung Electronics employees accused of transferring the company's 18-nanometer DRAM manufacturing technology to Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies, or CXMT. Prosecutors announced the indictment of 10 former Samsung employees in connection with the case last December. Concerns over technology theft extend beyond the country's largest conglomerates. Smaller suppliers of semiconductor materials, components and equipment can also possess sensitive manufacturing information while having fewer resources to protect it. The revised espionage law is intended to provide prosecutors with an additional legal tool in cases involving foreign entities, but it will not automatically turn every overseas technology leak into an espionage case. Prosecutors must establish that the information constitutes a national secret and demonstrate the required connection between the accused and a foreign country or equivalent organization. Technology leaks that do not meet that threshold can still be prosecuted under other laws, including the Industrial Technology Protection Act, which separately provides criminal penalties for leaking protected industrial technologies overseas. The tougher legal framework comes as competition over semiconductor technology intensifies between the United States and China and as artificial intelligence raises the strategic value of advanced memory chips. China on Friday called on South Korea to provide a fair and nondiscriminatory business environment for Chinese companies when asked about the expanded espionage law. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing has consistently required Chinese companies to comply with international rules and local laws when conducting overseas business, while calling on countries to safeguard normal investment and business activities. For South Korea, the change represents a shift from a counterespionage system historically centered on North Korea toward one designed to address a broader range of foreign threats — including the loss of technologies increasingly regarded as strategic national assets. AJP Takeaways - South Korea will expand its espionage law from Sept. 13 to cover spying for foreign countries, moving beyond a framework that had historically focused largely on North Korea. - The change comes amid growing concerns over overseas technology theft, with police detecting a record 33 cases last year, more than half involving China and semiconductors emerging as the most frequently targeted industry. - The revised law does not automatically classify every overseas technology leak as espionage, as prosecutors must establish that the information constitutes a national secret and demonstrate a required connection with a foreign country or equivalent organization. 2026-09-12 15:41:39 -
North Korea fires multiple short-range ballistic missiles into East Sea SEOUL, September 12 (AJP) - North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea early Saturday, South Korea's military said, a day after Seoul, Washington and Tokyo wrapped up a five-day joint military exercise. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the missiles being launched from the Wonsan area at around 5:20 a.m. The missiles flew about 250 kilometers before falling into the sea. South Korean and U.S. authorities are conducting a detailed analysis of the missiles, the JCS said. The launch came a day after South Korea, the United States and Japan concluded their five-day Freedom Edge exercise in international waters south and east of Jeju Island. North Korea has criticized the trilateral exercise and warned earlier this week that it would take countermeasures. Saturday's launch marked North Korea's first ballistic missile test since Aug. 20, when it fired more than 10 short-range ballistic missiles while South Korea and the United States were conducting their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise. It was North Korea's 13th ballistic missile launch this year. AJP Takeaways - North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles from Wonsan early Saturday, with the missiles traveling about 250 kilometers. - The launch came a day after South Korea, the U.S. and Japan concluded their five-day Freedom Edge military exercise. - It marked North Korea's first ballistic missile launch in 23 days and its 13th this year. 2026-09-12 11:02:54 -
AI comes at a price: $3,000 for a phone SEOUL, September 11 (AJP) - Apple is ready for a strong comeback after losing loyal Korean consumers to Samsung's foldables, with the iPhone's first foldable form rolling out across Korea on Oct. 23. The appeal to lure back long-term iPhone users is apparent, if form had been the sole put-off. The sole damper is the starting price tag of 3.29 million won for the entry-level 256-gigabyte model and 5.09 million won for the top-end 2-terabyte iPhone Duo. Apple has again set the bar by pushing the upper end of smartphone pricing beyond 5 million won for the first time in Korea. Samsung Electronics' latest foldables are hardly any cheaper. The Galaxy Z Fold8 starts at 2.28 million won in Korea, while the top-end 1TB Fold8 Ultra costs 3.45 million won. The ultra-premium devices sit at the extreme end of the market. But one thing is for sure. Smartphones are no longer an accessible gadget. Global smartphone retail prices have risen an average 15 percent so far this year, while newly launched devices are 25 percent more expensive than comparable models a year earlier, according to Counterpoint Research. More than 40 percent of smartphone models tracked by the research firm have raised prices in 2026, the first time the industry has crossed that threshold. Smartphones have gotten smarter with embedded AI services and agents, but those features rely on chips powerful enough to run them. The cost of memory has translated into the cost of hardware. Smartphone memory prices surged more than 80 percent quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter as the artificial intelligence boom continued to reshape how the world's limited memory production capacity is allocated. Memory makers have increasingly prioritized high-margin products used in AI data centers, tightening the supply available for smartphones and other consumer electronics. Global DRAM suppliers' inventories remain at historically low levels, while additional supply is being directed primarily toward servers, according to TrendForce. The result is a form of "chipflation" — rising semiconductor costs that are beginning to spill over from AI infrastructure into the prices consumers pay for everyday electronics. The impact is already visible inside smartphones. The bill of materials for comparable low-end smartphones jumped 70 percent from a year earlier in the second quarter, with almost all of the increase attributable to memory, Counterpoint said. Mid-range devices saw their component costs rise 52 percent, with memory accounting for about 40 percent of total BoM costs. Even premium smartphones were not spared. Their component costs increased nearly 50 percent, with DRAM overtaking the application processor to become the most expensive single component in a premium smartphone. The effects are moving beyond manufacturers' balance sheets. Some smartphone makers are reducing storage capacity, scaling back camera specifications or bringing back 4G models in certain price segments to contain costs. Others are concentrating on higher-end products where elevated component costs can be more easily absorbed or passed on to consumers. As smartphone prices rise, consumers are likely to respond by holding on to their devices for longer, according to Hwang Yong-sik, a professor of business administration at Sejong University. "As prices continue to rise and more premium phones enter the market, replacement cycles will inevitably get longer," Hwang said. "The switching cost is getting higher, so consumers are likely to choose to use their devices more sparingly and for longer." Consumers have begun to accept the cost of higher memory — effectively the hardware tokens of the AI age. For Park, a 30-year-old office worker in Seoul, higher smartphone prices mean one thing: holding on to his current device for longer. "If smartphone prices weren't such a burden, I might think about replacing my phone even if it still works," Park said. "But at these prices, unless my phone reaches the point where I really can't use it anymore, I'll probably just keep using it." Park, who uses a Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus, said he extended his mobile contract for another year after his initial two-year contract expired rather than replacing the device. He said he would still prefer a new premium phone over a refurbished one, but rising prices have raised the threshold for when he considers an upgrade. Counterpoint said buyers are delaying upgrades, choosing devices with less storage or turning to refurbished smartphones as prices climb. The research firm expects the global smartphone average selling price to rise 22 percent this year to $450, although it cautioned that the increase should not be interpreted simply as consumers willingly spending more on premium devices. Global smartphone shipments fell 11 percent from a year earlier in the second quarter to their lowest second-quarter level since 2013, with Counterpoint describing the memory shortage as the dominant drag on the market. The pressure is also spreading to PCs. TrendForce said rising retail prices are already weighing on consumer spending and notebook shipments as PC makers face higher DRAM costs. Conventional DRAM contract prices are expected to rise another 13 percent to 18 percent quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter, even after steep increases earlier this year. Hwang said the impact could extend beyond electronics if higher prices leave households with less room for discretionary spending. "If inflation continues, consumers will tighten their belts and close their wallets," Hwang said. "They will spend less, and that could eventually become a factor affecting sales in the smartphone industry as well." For consumers, the question is therefore no longer simply how much more advanced the next smartphone or laptop will be, but how much more they will have to pay for it. A 5-million-won smartphone remains an extreme example, driven by factors well beyond memory costs. Apple has in fact kept prices of its existing iPhones steady despite the memory surge, according to Counterpoint. But as AI infrastructure competes for the same underlying memory manufacturing resources used by consumer devices, the industry's cost structure is changing. Whether today's 5-million-won smartphone remains an outlier or becomes an early sign of a more expensive era for consumer electronics may depend in part on how long the global memory shortage lasts — and how much of the bill device makers are willing, or able, to pass on to consumers. AJP Takeaways - AI-driven memory shortages are spilling into consumer electronics, pushing up smartphone and PC prices as chipmakers prioritize higher-margin products for AI data centers. - Global smartphone retail prices have risen an average 15 percent so far this year, while smartphone memory prices surged more than 80 percent quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter, according to Counterpoint Research. - Rising device prices are prompting consumers to delay upgrades, choose lower-cost configurations or turn to refurbished models, raising the prospect of longer replacement cycles and weaker consumer electronics demand. 2026-09-11 15:27:40 -
SK hynix revises bonus deal, raises cash portion to 50% SEOUL, September 10 (AJP) - SK hynix and its labor union have reached a revised tentative wage agreement that increases the cash portion of employee performance bonuses, following the rejection of an earlier deal by union members. Under the revised agreement, 50 percent of the company's profit-sharing bonus, or PS, will be paid in cash and 50 percent in shares, compared with a 40-60 split under the previous proposal, said a company official. Of the total PS, 80 percent will be paid in the year following the performance period, consisting of 50 percent in cash and 30 percent in shares. The remaining 20 percent will be deferred and paid in shares over the following two years, with 10 percent distributed each year. The revision comes after union members narrowly rejected the previous tentative agreement last month. The proposal was voted down by just 25 votes, with 50.08 percent opposing the deal and 49.92 percent supporting it. The earlier agreement had drawn concerns among employees over the increased use of stock-based compensation, as the value of shares can fluctuate before they are received. Under the revised plan, employees who prefer a higher proportion of stock will be able to increase the share-based portion from the default 50 percent to as much as 100 percent in 10-percentage-point increments. The company also agreed to bring forward the remaining 20 percent of PS based on last year's performance that had originally been scheduled for deferred payment over the next two years. SK hynix and the union have been renegotiating details of the compensation structure since the first tentative agreement was rejected. Union members are scheduled to vote on the revised agreement on Sept. 15 and 16. If approved, the vote will finalize the wage agreement, the SK hynix official said. AJP Takeaways - SK hynix revised its tentative bonus deal to increase the cash portion of PS to 50 percent from 40 percent, while cutting the stock portion to 50 percent from 60 percent. - Under the basic structure, 80 percent will be paid upfront — 50 percent in cash and 30 percent in shares — while 20 percent will be deferred over two years. - Union members will vote on the revised agreement on Sept. 15-16 after narrowly rejecting the previous proposal by 25 votes. 2026-09-10 14:32:05