SK hynix posts soaring profits on surging AI chip demand

SEOUL, April 24 (AJP) - SK hynix reported a sharp rise in first-quarter profits on Thursday, fueled by surging demand for advanced memory chips used in artificial intelligence applications. The company’s operating profit jumped 157.8 percent from a year earlier to 7.44 trillion won, or about $5.21 billion, according to a regulatory filing. Revenue rose 41.9 percent to 17.64 trillion won, while net profit soared 323 percent to 8.11 trillion won. “The memory market impr

April 24, 2025

Alibaba's 26-year rise as Asia's technology titan

Editor's Note: This article is the 15th installment in our series on Asia's top 100 companies, exploring the strategies, challenges, and innovations driving the region's most influential corporations. SEOUL, April 24 (AJP) - In 1999, in a small apartment in Hangzhou, eastern China, a former English teacher named Jack Ma gathered 17 friends and associates to launch a new kind of business. Their goal was audacious: to create an online marketplace that would connect Ch

April 24, 2025

South Korea sees first monthly rise in births in 11 years

SEOUL, April 23 (AJP) - South Korea recorded its first year-on-year monthly increase in births in more than a decade in February, offering a rare glimmer of hope in the country’s ongoing demographic crisis. According to data released Wednesday by Statistics Korea, 20,035 babies were born in February, a 3.2 percent increase from the same month last year, or 622 additional births. This marked the first time since 2014 that February births had risen and the largest such incr

April 23, 2025

Cardinal You Heung-sik named among contenders for next pope

SEOUL, April 23 (AJP) - Cardinal Lazarus You Heung-sik, the prefect of the Vatican's Dicastery for the Clergy, has been named one of the top candidates to become the next pope after the death of Pope Francis earlier this week. Italy's largest daily Corriere della Sera on Tuesday listed him 11th among its "12 likely successors to Pope Francis." He was one of two Asians, along with Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, among a dozen contenders that included

April 23, 2025

Retailers battle for supremacy in booming online fresh food market

SEOUL, April 23 (AJP) - South Korea’s major retailers are intensifying their push into the fresh food market, a fast-growing segment that has emerged as a critical battleground for both e-commerce and traditional chains. Coupang, the country’s dominant online retailer, is leading the charge. The company has ramped up its investment in fresh food logistics, forging direct partnerships with regional producers across South Chungcheong, South Gyeongsang, and North Gyeongsa

April 23, 2025

Prosecutors raid Korea Zinc, brokerages in market manipulation probe

SEOUL, April 23 (AJP) - Prosecutors raided the headquarters of Korea Zinc and several major brokerage firms on Wednesday as part of a widening investigation into allegations of unfair trading practices tied to a multibillion-dollar rights offering announced last year. Investigators from the Southern Seoul District Prosecutors’ Office carried out search and seizure operations at six corporate offices and five private residences, including those of Korea Zinc executives and bran

April 23, 2025

PHOTOS: Jeju Island's famed native horses

SEOUL, April 23 (AJP) - More than a hundred Jeju horses, designated national treasures, thundered across the verdant expanse of the Mabangmokji pasture near Mount Halla on April 19 and 20, marking a vibrant festival celebrating the island's equine heritage. The event showcased "ipmok," a time-honored Jeju tradition that ritually ushers livestock into new grazing lands or signals the commencement of spring pasturing. The festival aimed to underscore the profound cultural and hist

April 23, 2025

INTERVIEW: How Korean culture stole Parisian hearts, devoted advocate explains

SEOUL, April 23 (AJP) - "France today is completely different from what I once knew," said Lee Il-yeol, chief of the Korean Cultural Center in Paris, as he began his interview with AJP early this month. Reflecting on his time in the late 1980s when he first arrived in the city of light as a student, he said, "Back then, only a small circle of scholars of Asian studies or diplomats had some interest in South Korea, so the center often remained deserted, visited only by

April 23, 2025

Tariff tensions between US and China will dent Korea's growth: report

SEOUL, April 23 (AJP) - South Korea's economy could see its growth rate shaved by as much as half a percentage point this year if trade tensions between the United States and China continue to escalate, according to a report from Citigroup. The analysis underscores the deepening vulnerability of export-driven economies like South Korea's amid intensifying geopolitical frictions between the world’s two largest economies. Even under scenarios in which Seoul manages to

April 23, 2025

US State Department's post for North Korean human rights envoy remains vacant again

SEOUL, April 23 (AJP) - Washington's special envoy in charge of North Korean human rights issues has once again been left vacant since early this year, it was belatedly revealed on Tuesday. According to the U.S. Department of State, Julie Turner who "worked over the past 20 years to strengthen democratic institutions and promote human rights throughout the East Asia and Pacific Region" now serves as the acting deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Democracy, Huma

April 23, 2025