If you own an iPhone, you probably have it by your side at all times and couldn’t imagine life without it. A land with no iPhones? That’s difficult for much of the rest of the world to imagine. But up until now, people in South Korea weren’t allowed to own iPhones.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the Korea Communications Commissions has decided to allow iPhones to be sold in the country. To allow iPhones, a technical ban had to be altered.
In South Korea, the iPhone will take on domestic giants such as LG and Samsung. Considering that people in …read more

Chevron Australia, a subsidiary of Chevron, has signed deals with three companies from the countries of Japan and South Korea that is worth approximately $60 billion. The deals, which were made with GS Caltex, Tokyo Gas and Osaka Gas, call for Chevron Australia to provide natural gas from the Gorgon gas field once it is developed.
Said John Gass of Chevron: “With Osaka Gas and Tokyo Gas, we have as foundation customers two of the most experienced LNG buyers in the largest LNG market in the world. The agreements with GS Caltex provide our initial entry into the important Korean LNG …read more

Hyundai Motor Company is quickly becoming a force in the auto industry. Founded and headquartered in South Korea, Hyundai is currently one of the largest automakers in the world. Recently, they revealed that their second quarter profit jumped nearly 50%.
In the second quarter of 2008, Hyundai had a profit of around $438 million. In 2009’s second quarter, Hyundai’s profit was up to around $650 million.
The dramatic rise in profit is somewhat surprising considering that sales were down more than 10%. However, after cutting costs, Hyundai was able to survive one of the most difficult times in the history of the …read more

In a move that will undoubtedly draw some ire from rival North Korea, Ericsson AB, the top provider of wireless networks in the world, has decided to set up a research center in South Korea. This research center will involve an investment of $1.5 billion over the next five years into the Asian country.
 
According to Ericsson’s CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg, the research center will be devoted to developing “fourth-generation” wireless technologies that are more environmentally friendly than previous generations. In addition to the research center, Ericsson will hire 920 more employees in its South Korea division, increasing the number of employees …read more

Businesses which operate online are hoping they aren’t next on the hit list after a wave of cyber attacks brought a number of websites to their knees. By utilizing a denial of service attack, cyber attackers are overloading servers and making it impossible for surfers to visit certain websites.
Who is behind the cyber attacks? Rumors indicate that international experts believe it could be North Korea. When asked if there is any truth to the reports, North Korea refused to comment. It seems that even if North Korea isn’t behind the attacks that they are fine with experts believe they may …read more

This week, eBay made an aggressive move in South Korea by purchasing Gmarket for $1.2 billion. Gmarket is a marketplace with a large presence in South Korea and eBay plans to align it with Internet Auction Company, a property eBay already owns that also operates in South Korea.
The plan outlined by eBay has the California based company purchasing the Gmarket shares for $24 each and the company says they will acquire at least two-thirds of Gmarket’s shares. Many experts believe eBay is targeting South Korea due to its emerging market and the fact that internet commerce is the company’s specialty.
In …read more

In working to come to an agreement on a free trade arrangement, both the European Union and South Korea said that their talks on Monday would be final. Any agreement reached would then have to be approved by both South Korea and the governments that comprise the European Union.
At the heart of these talks is protectionism. By definition, protectionism occurs when a country attempts to protect its own industries by blocking investments and exports from foreign countries. With the current global economic mess, countries that practice protectionism could make the current mess even worse. Additionally, history shows that hostility is …read more

Who knew? Apparently the South Korean market has been closed to blackberries, leaving hundreds of visiting “crackberry” addicts with twitching thumbs and a slightly frantic, wasted look due to a few minutes offline. That may soon change, according to this article in the Wall Street Journal (registration required), which attributes the lack of blackberry access to regulations intended to protect homegrown cell phone manufacturers like Samsung.