Journalist

김동영
Kim Dong-young, Im Yoon-seo
  • Samyang Foods promotes Buldak architect Kim Jung-soo to chair
    Samyang Foods promotes Buldak architect Kim Jung-soo to chair SEOUL, May 15 (AJP) - Samyang Foods announced that its board has elevated Vice Chair Kim Jung-soo, the executive widely credited with creating its globally popular Buldak instant noodles, to chair effective June 1, as the company tightens its grip on a fast-expanding overseas business. The promotion is Kim's first since she became vice chair in December 2021. Kim joined the noodle maker during the 1998 financial crisis and launched the Hot Chicken Flavor Ramen, or Buldak, brand in 2012, transforming a struggling domestic player into one of South Korea's most-watched export stories. Samyang said the move reflects the need for unified leadership as overseas sales now account for about 80 percent of revenue, with sales subsidiaries and plants taking shape across the United States, China and Europe. A new factory in Jiaxing, China, is under construction, and the company is reviewing additional regional liaison offices. Under Kim's watch, revenue climbed to 2.35 trillion won ($1.56 billion) in 2025 from 642 billion won in 2021, while the operating margin more than doubled to 22 percent from 10 percent. The momentum carried into this year: Samyang on Wednesday reported record first-quarter revenue of 714.4 billion won, up 35 percent on year, driven by a 215 percent surge in European sales. "The promotion of Vice Chair Kim Jung-soo is aimed at reinforcing responsible management for global expansion and corporate value," said a Samyang Foods spokesperson, adding that the company will concentrate group-wide resources on cementing its overseas competitiveness under her leadership from June. 2026-05-15 10:12:05
  • K-Game: Subnautica 2 dives into early access, lonelier than it looks
    K-Game: Subnautica 2 dives into early access, lonelier than it looks SEOUL, May 14 (AJP) - Most survival games this reviewer has lived inside — Rust, Minecraft, Terraria, Core Keeper — share a comfortable rhythm: gather, build, defend, repeat. Fishing is a life-hobby for this reviewer, an in-game delicacy for such survival games as well. "Subnautica 2," which entered early access on Friday at zero a.m. KST, breaks that rhythm in two specific places. The fish want to eat you. And you cannot breathe. That combination — predators that hunt rather than wander, plus a permanent oxygen clock — is something only this series really commits to, and the sequel does not soften it. Even with a crafting-survival muscle memory built over years, the first dive produced the familiar tightening that the original game weaponized so well: a so-called thalassophobia and megalophobia inducer. Full disclosure: this reviewer never finished the 2018 original, having played it in patches and watched the rest as YouTube playthroughs. That made "Subnautica 2" one of the more anticipated titles on the personal calendar — and, after about five hours of solo play, one of the more interesting to write about. Developed by Krafton-owned Unknown Worlds Entertainment, the sequel drops players onto an unfamiliar alien ocean world aboard a doomed Alterra colony ship called the Cicada. It ditches the first game's planet 4546B entirely and, for the first time in the series, supports up to four-player co-op alongside solo. The franchise has sold more than 18.5 million copies to date, per Unknown Worlds, and the sequel topped Steam's global wishlist for nine straight months, crossing five million wishlists before launch. Story, lightly told The structural pitch differs from the first game in one key way: this is not an escape story. Players are not trying to leave. The Cicada's AI is barking objectives, the planet is hostile, and the goal is to adapt to it — to stay. Adaptation is also a mechanic. A new system called BioMod lets the player splice alien genes into their body to unlock new traits — bio-orb cave markers, faster swim speed, surfacing the planet's biology through one's own skin. The longer the player runs, the further from human baseline they drift. There is no protagonist voice-over and very little hand-holding. Skip the AI dialogue and the logs from earlier visitors, and early objectives become genuinely opaque. Several hours in, this reviewer was still freediving for blueprints like a checklist-bound pearl diver, scanner in hand, oxygen ticking. How the loop feels The loop lands somewhere between meditative and slightly panicked. Without an extra tank, the player surfaces about every 30 seconds or sprints to a bubble-emitting plant to top off. Movement, health and inventory size all expand by finding hidden biopods across the map — a soft, exploration-rewarding progression that worked on this reviewer more than the standard XP bar would. This reviewer's usual survival-game default is "fisherman and forager" — let someone else fight, let the snacks pile up. "Subnautica 2" is the rare entry where collecting fish is also collecting predators, since plenty of them bite back. Less Stardew Valley, more Jeju haenyeo (women divers) in a horror cut: the diver goes down, the diver comes up with whatever did not get her. It is a strangely compelling pitch. Hostile life is otherwise thin in the early game. Nibblers dart in for a single chomp and flee. Larger pursuers can be peeled off with a sonic resonator or a flare — though firing the resonator near a wall produced a reliable bug in which the pursuing creature simply embedded itself in the geometry. Death is gentler than it sounds. A "Reprint" mechanic revives the player from stored memory — think the recent film "Mickey 17" — at the cost of two or three items rather than the full inventory. A quiet kindness in a game that otherwise enjoys making the player suffer. Toys, bases, and the small annoyances The new flagship vehicle, the TadPole, is a glass-fronted, winged sub that can carry up to three players hanging from a top rail, with a smaller drone that detaches to thread tight caves. Base-building has loosened considerably, though the early-access blueprint pool is narrow: this reviewer spent the first stretch living in a hamster-tube of corridors before stumbling on an abandoned habitat that unlocked proper rooms. Solar panels cover the early game but tank hard at night. Inventory management is the most frustrating area. There is no stacking, no drag-to-discard, only five hotkey slots, and the hand-held field container does not auto-collect. One container this reviewer set down on the seabed re-spawned, apparently floating, in a completely different biome on the next load — the first major bug in roughly four hours of play. How it looks, how it runs The jump from Unity to Unreal Engine 5 is doing real work. Light falls through the water column with a softness the first game never had, and at about 200 meters down the sun simply gives up. On a system with an RTX 5070, 32GB of RAM and an AMD Ryzen AI 7 350, the game held up at maximum settings with motion blur off, with occasional hitches — most reliably when climbing a ladder into a vehicle pod. Krafton has said the game targets 4K at 60 fps on an RTX 5070 Ti or Radeon RX 7900 XTX, a softer ask than most UE5 releases. The early-access map is also visibly fenced in. Swim too far toward the giant central tree on the horizon and the world simply tells you it has not been built yet — usually by spawning three leviathan-class predators that kill the player on contact. An honest map border, at least. A note on how the game got here The road to launch was unusually loud. Krafton and the studio's three co-founders — Charlie Cleveland, Max McGuire and former CEO Ted Gill — spent much of 2025 in court over a $250 million earnout tied to the sequel's release. A Delaware Chancery judge in March 2026 ruled Krafton had wrongfully terminated the trio and reinstated Gill as CEO, pushing early access into this year. Co-op, in theory Four-player co-op was not testable during this review window — multiplayer did not return for press play after an earlier closed beta. The setup is straightforward enough on the menu: one player hosts in survival or creative mode (a third slot is marked "Coming Soon"), and the rest join through a Steam friends list or a short friend code. Character customization is thinner than pre-launch chatter suggested — players pick one of four pre-set survivors, and that is it for now. Lead designer Anthony Gallegos has said co-op tuning will follow player feedback after launch. The hooks are there on paper — three-seat TadPole rides, two-player lever puzzles, bio-orb breadcrumb trails. Whether they land is something this reviewer will have to come back to once there is a full team in the water. Worth diving in? After four hours, "Subnautica 2" feels recognizably Subnautica — slower, prettier, more legally complicated, and built around evolving into the planet rather than escaping from it. The horror still works in the specific way only this series does. The inventory does not. The map is small, the bugs are real, and a lot of the promised content is on a roadmap rather than in the build. For someone who came in as a fan-by-osmosis rather than a finisher of the first game, the early hours felt less like clearing a tutorial and more like learning to be a different kind of animal in a place that is actively trying to digest you. For a survival game that lets the player literally adapt into the ecosystem, that seems to be the entire point. 2026-05-15 09:00:00
  • ARC Raiders, MapleStory drive Nexon to record quarter
    'ARC Raiders,' 'MapleStory' drive Nexon to record quarter SEOUL, May 14 (AJP) - Nexon reported record quarterly earnings, with revenue, operating profit and net income all reaching all-time highs as the Tokyo-listed Korean-Japanese game publisher rode breakout demand for its 'ARC Raiders' extraction shooter and the enduring 'MapleStory' franchise. According to the firm on Thursday, first-quarter revenue rose 34 percent year-on-year to 152.2 billion yen ($963 million), while operating profit climbed 40 percent to 58.2 billion yen. Net income more than doubled, surging 118 percent to 57.2 billion yen. For the second quarter, Nexon projected revenue of between 107 billion and 119.7 billion yen, a range spanning a 10 percent decline to 1 percent growth from a year earlier. Operating profit is forecast at 16.1 billion to 25.3 billion yen, with net income seen between 16.1 billion and 23.2 billion yen. The game giant's 'MapleStory' franchise grew 42 percent from a year earlier, propelled by last year's global rollout of 'MapleStory: Idle RPG' and 'MapleStory Worlds'. The latter title jumped 79 percent on a Lunar New Year update in Taiwan, while the flagship 'MapleStory' rose 8 percent on Western momentum. 'ARC Raiders', launched in October by Nexon's Stockholm-based subsidiary Embark Studios, sold an additional 4.6 million copies in the quarter to cross 16 million in cumulative global sales just six months after release. More than half of active users have logged over 100 hours, the company said, and the title collected five major industry honors, including the multiplayer prize at the BAFTA Games Awards 2026. The combined pull of the two titles quadrupled Nexon's North American and European revenue and more than doubled sales in Southeast Asia and other markets, lifting total overseas revenue 59 percent for a quarterly record. Separately, the company renewed long-term publishing deals with Electronic Arts for 'EA Sports FC Online' in Korea and extended its agreement with Tencent for 'Dungeon & Fighter' PC in China by a decade. "The global success of the MapleStory franchise and 'ARC Raiders' allowed us to deliver outstanding first-quarter results," Lee Jung-hun, chief executive of Nexon's Japan unit, said. "We will secure mid- to long-term growth momentum through stronger strategic partnerships and a solid pipeline of new titles." 2026-05-14 16:23:32
  • Korean firms ramp up family-friendly perks as low birth rate bites
    Korean firms ramp up family-friendly perks as low birth rate bites SEOUL, May 14 (AJP) - South Korean companies are widening cash payouts and parental leave benefits to lift the world's lowest birth rate, with game publisher Krafton reporting a near doubling of in-house births a year after overhauling its childbirth and childcare program. Krafton said Thursday that 46 children were born to its employees between January and April this year, about twice the 23 births recorded in the same period last year and 21 in 2024. The Seoul-based firm rolled out the expanded scheme in February 2025. The program offers up to 100 million won ($66,992) per child over a worker's career, alongside parental leave of up to two years, automated hiring of replacement staff and counseling for returning parents. The company is co-running a study with Seoul National University's Population Policy Research Center on its effectiveness. The findings suggest cash and non-cash benefits work differently. Direct subsidies signal corporate sincerity, with 83.4 percent of the staff surveyed saying they felt the company's family-friendly message was genuine. Non-cash measures such as flexible hours and childcare support more strongly shaped attitudes toward having children. "Through this research, we confirmed that real change is possible when companies actively join in solving social problems," said Choi Jae-keun, head of Krafton's General Operations Department. Krafton joins a growing roster of Korean firms tackling the demographic slump. Booyoung Group ignited the trend in 2024 with a 100 million won bonus per newborn, which lobbied the government into exempting such corporate gifts from tax. Kumho Petrochemical and HD Hyundai have since followed with cash incentives, while Samsung Electronics, LG and Hyundai Motor have expanded onsite daycare, fertility coverage and extended parental leave. The corporate push appears to align with a tentative national turnaround. South Korea's total fertility rate climbed to 0.8 in 2025, a four-year high, with 254,500 newborns marking the steepest annual increase since 2007, government data showed in February. 2026-05-14 14:03:59
  • SK AX signs with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT Enterprise to Korea
    SK AX signs with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT Enterprise to Korea SEOUL, May 14 (AJP) - SK AX, the IT services arm of South Korea's SK Group, has signed a service partner agreement with OpenAI to deploy and operate ChatGPT Enterprise across Korean corporate clients, the company said on Wednesday. Under the deal, SK AX will tailor OpenAI's flagship enterprise product to each customer's workflows and security requirements, building generative artificial intelligence into back-office systems rather than bolting it on, the company said Thursday. SK AX CEO Kim Wan-jong and Anthony Russell, OpenAI's head of partnerships for Asia-Pacific, attended the signing ceremony. "We aim to help clients pursue genuine AI transformation by redesigning their internal structures, work processes and governance, not merely adopting the technology," Kim said. The agreement targets a pain point that has dogged Korean enterprises racing to embrace generative AI: the gap between pilot projects and measurable returns. SK AX flagged the rise of so-called "shadow AI," in which employees plug company data into outside chatbots without oversight, as a fresh source of security risk. SK AX will fold ChatGPT Enterprise into its existing menu of consulting, multi-agent system integration, governance design and workforce change management, drawing on AI architects, data specialists and industry domain experts. The company is positioning itself as OpenAI's preferred channel partner for the South Korean market. The tie-up adds to a string of OpenAI partnerships in South Korea, which the U.S. firm has called its largest paid-ChatGPT market outside the United States. OpenAI opened a Seoul office in September 2025 and has signed deals with Samsung SDS, SK Telecom and Kakao as it chases enterprise revenue in the country. 2026-05-14 09:56:35
  • Samyang Foods hits record Q1 on Buldak demand
    Samyang Foods hits record Q1 on Buldak demand SEOUL, May 13 (AJP) - Samyang Foods reported its highest-ever quarterly earnings for the first quarter of 2026, lifted by resilient overseas demand for its Buldak instant noodles, expanded production capacity and a favorable exchange rate. The South Korean noodle maker announced Wednesday through regulatory filings that consolidated revenue rose 35 percent from a year earlier to 714.4 billion won ($480.1 million), while operating profit climbed 32 percent to 177.1 billion won. Both figures marked all-time quarterly highs. Overseas sales, which drove the growth, surged 38 percent on year to 585 billion won as higher utilization at the company's second Miryang plant unlocked additional supply for fast-growing markets in Europe and the Americas. Europe led the charge with a 215 percent jump in revenue to 77 billion won, aided by the launch of a UK subsidiary and broader placement in mainstream retail channels in Germany, the Netherlands and other Western European markets. Sales in the United States, Samyang's largest export market, rose 37 percent to 185 billion won, and China revenue climbed 36 percent to 171 billion won. The operating margin came in at 24.8 percent, the fifth straight quarter above 20 percent, as steady offshore demand combined with a weaker won amplified profitability. The Korean currency traded near 1,486 per dollar this week amid Middle East tensions, sharpening the conversion benefit for exporters. "Despite a challenging external environment, we delivered strong results that once again validated the competitiveness of the Buldak brand and the durability of our growth," said a Samyang Food spokesperson, adding that the company will focus this year on strengthening its global operations and expanding production and sales infrastructure. Shares of Samyang Food ended at 1,359,000 won per share, 2.1 percent higher than a day before. 2026-05-13 16:18:50
  • HMM Q1 profit slumps 56% on Mideast war, tariffs
    HMM Q1 profit slumps 56% on Mideast war, tariffs SEOUL, May 13 (AJP) - South Korea's largest container carrier HMM reported first-quarter operating profit tumbled 56 percent from a year earlier, hit by sliding freight rates on its core transpacific lanes, surging bunker fuel costs tied to the war in the Middle East and the lingering drag of U.S. tariffs. According to regulatory filings released Wednesday, operating profit fell to 269.1 billion won ($180.6 million) in the three months to March, from 613.9 billion won a year earlier. Revenue slipped 4.8 percent to 2.72 trillion won, while net profit dropped 52 percent to 353.6 billion won. The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index, a benchmark for global box rates, averaged 1,507 points in the quarter, down about 14 percent from a year earlier. Rates on HMM's flagship U.S. routes were hit far harder, plunging 38 percent on the West Coast and 37 percent on the East Coast as President Donald Trump's tariff regime continued to squeeze China-U.S. cargo volumes. The Iran war, which has largely shut the Strait of Hormuz since late February, has rippled through the industry by tightening bunker fuel supplies and lifting oil prices. The price of Singapore 380 CST bunker, a key fuel for large vessels, climbed about 9% to $530 per ton from $486 a year earlier. The crisis hit even closer to home on May 4, when the HMM Namu, a multipurpose carrier operated by the company, was struck by two unidentified flying objects while anchored off the United Arab Emirates, injuring one crew member. "The conflict has driven almost all global shipping lines deeper into the red," said HMM CEO Choi Won-hyok during a press conference concerning the relocation of its headquarters to Busan. The first quarter is traditionally a seasonal trough for container demand, and HMM said it still posted an operating margin of 9.9 percent, among the highest of major global carriers. The company plans to optimize fuel costs, open new African routes under a "hub-and-spoke" strategy and secure long-term bulk contracts. Shares of HMM ended at 19,830 per stock, 0.15 percent higher than the day before. 2026-05-13 15:45:10
  • South Korea launches expert council to chart AI-driven future
    South Korea launches expert council to chart AI-driven future SEOUL, May 13 (AJP) - South Korea convened the inaugural meeting of a new expert advisory body tasked with shaping the government's policy response to artificial intelligence and the sweeping societal shifts it is expected to bring. The Ministry of Science and ICT said Wednesday its special council for technology and artificial intelligence met for the first time at the Presidential Advisory Council on Science & Technology in Gwanghwamun, Seoul, drawing 17 specialists from fields spanning the economy, industry, education, healthcare, culture and law. The ministry said the cross-disciplinary lineup was designed to dissect how cutting-edge technologies intersect with each sector and to forecast the future through a wider analytical lens than a purely scientific panel would allow. The council will convene quarterly, with its membership set to expand to capture a wider range of voices, while agendas identified at the sessions will be developed into in-depth studies released as a "Future Agenda Series" in cooperation with affiliated research institutes, the ministry said. Cross-ministerial issues will be escalated to the Science and Technology Ministers' Meeting to secure follow-through on policy. "Advances in cutting-edge technologies such as AI are accelerating, and technological innovation is fundamentally reshaping not only industries but also national systems and daily life," said Bae Kyung-hoon, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT, pledging to "tear down the wall between the public and private sectors" and pool expertise to design a hopeful blueprint for future generations. 2026-05-13 15:12:10
  • K-shaped economy deepens across Asia on AI momentum
    K-shaped economy deepens across Asia on AI momentum SEOUL, May 13 (AJP) - A widening economic divide is emerging across Asia, as semiconductor-driven economies such as South Korea and Taiwan ride record-breaking stock rallies while manufacturing-heavy nations including India, Thailand and the Philippines struggle under the weight of a historic oil shock. The bifurcation, sharpened by the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz, has produced what economists describe as a "K-shaped" recovery, in which the gains from the artificial intelligence boom and the pain of fuel scarcity move in opposite directions across the region. Taiwan’s first-quarter GDP expanded 13.69 percent, the fastest pace in 39 years, as its stock market surpassed Canada’s to become the world’s sixth largest. South Korea’s KOSPI has also overtaken the stock markets of London and Toronto, propelled by chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, whose first-quarter profits reached fresh records. Samsung’s market capitalization has climbed above $1 trillion, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company now accounts for more than 40 percent of the Taiwan Stock Exchange. A report by the United Nations Trade and Development projects the global AI market will expand to $4.8 trillion by 2033, roughly 25 times its 2023 size. A contrasting picture emerges in the south and west. In the Philippines, where more than 36 percent of the consumer price basket is linked to oil, fuel prices have surged past 100 pesos ($5.81) per liter. The central bank is weighing whether to raise interest rates to contain inflation or hold them steady to protect growth. Manila has also introduced a four-day workweek to curb fuel demand. Thailand has reported nationwide fuel shortages, while Pakistan has urged cricket fans to watch matches from home to conserve gasoline. The United Nations Development Programme estimates the war has placed about 8.8 million people in the Asia-Pacific at risk of falling into poverty and could shave 0.3 to 0.8 percentage point off regional GDP. At the heart of the divide is intensifying competition for medium and heavy crude oil, the grades that generate the highest refining margins and underpin Middle Eastern exports. Although the United States is the world’s largest oil producer, its output is heavily weighted toward light, sweet shale crude, leaving Asian refiners competing fiercely for sour crude from non-Hormuz suppliers. "Unless the war ends on reasonable and viable terms good enough to convince shipowners and insurance companies, it may be extremely difficult for oil prices to return to post-war levels even in the long run," said Chung Tae-hun, an associate research fellow at the Korea Energy Economics Institute. "We still face competition for heavy crude oil outside the Middle East if the war becomes prolonged, with China and Japan also bidding for supplies," he said. Brent crude hovered around $106 a barrel on Wednesday, while daily transits through the Strait of Hormuz fell to roughly 18 vessels from a prewar average of 135. The World Bank reported that by the end of March, Brent prices had risen about 65 percent, marking the largest monthly oil-price increase on record. The wealth generated by the AI boom has also failed to spread evenly within the region’s winning economies. In South Korea, more than 30,000 unionized workers at Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor division have scheduled a strike from May 21 to June 7 after wage negotiations collapsed Tuesday. The union is demanding a 15 percent operating-profit bonus and a 7 percent increase in base pay. JPMorgan Chase estimates the 18-day stoppage could reduce Samsung’s quarterly profits by as much as 12 percent. In Taiwan, the semiconductor industry employs only about 4 percent of the workforce, yet entry-level chip-sector salaries can be five times higher than wages in other industries, fueling concerns over growing inequality and economic concentration. Officials and analysts warn that the widening divergence could have consequences far beyond Asia. Deepening inequality threatens to weaken consumer spending, complicate monetary policy and disrupt global trade flows. Analysts also warn that the fuel shortage could soon become critical. "We are going to start to see some import-dependent countries potentially face critical shortages as we get into the June-July timeframe," said Andy O’Brien, chief financial officer of ConocoPhillips, during the company’s first-quarter earnings call. Valero Energy also warned of worsening supply pressures. Chief executive Lane Riggs said that for every day the strait remains closed, "it takes a minimum of three days to rebuild stocks," meaning it could take six to 12 months to fully replenish inventories. 2026-05-13 14:46:57
  • K-ramyeon makers race overseas as Nongshim eyes 60% global sales
    K-ramyeon makers race overseas as Nongshim eyes 60% global sales SEOUL, May 13 (AJP) - South Korea's instant noodle makers are accelerating a pivot abroad as a saturated home market and surging foreign appetite for K-food reshape the industry, with Nongshim unveiling its most aggressive overseas push yet. Nongshim CEO Jo Yong-chul said Tuesday that the company aims to lift overseas sales to more than 60 percent of total revenue and reach 7.3 trillion won ($4.88 billion) in sales by 2030, alongside a 10 percent operating margin. Overseas business currently accounts for about 40 percent of Nongshim's revenue. "We will sufficiently achieve this sales target if we secure logistics hubs to support our overseas business," Jo told reporters at a briefing in Seoul marking the 40th anniversary of flagship brand Shin Ramyun, adding that an export-only plant in Busan's Noksan district will start operations in the fourth quarter and that the company will widen distribution in the United States, Japan and China. Nongshim, which holds more than 60 percent of Korea's domestic ramyeon market, plans to launch a sales unit in Moscow next month to tap the European and Commonwealth of Independent States markets, on top of existing factories in Los Angeles and three Chinese cities. Shin Ramyun's overseas sales reached 1.02 trillion won last year, or 66% of the brand's 1.54 trillion won total. The drive reflects a broader industry scramble. Korea's ramyeon exports hit a record $1.52 billion in 2025, up 21.9 percent from a year earlier and extending an 11-year streak of growth, according to the Korea Customs Service, with China and the U.S. together absorbing more than 40 percent of shipments. Rival Samyang Foods, maker of the viral Buldak spicy noodles, has moved faster. Its 2025 sales surged 36 percent to 2.35 trillion won, with oversea sales accounting for over 70 percent of revenue, and the company broke ground in July on its first non-domestic plant in China. Ottogi, maker of Jin Ramen, has set a target of 1.1 trillion won in overseas sales by 2030, while smaller player Paldo continues to lean on Russia and Central Asia, where its Doshirak cup noodle is a household name. 2026-05-13 14:01:33