Tag Archive for 'Korea'

Indonesia is next for Asset Managers

Published on November 7, 2011 in Emerging Markets. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Mirae Asset Global Investments Co., South Korea’s second-largest money manager, is considering an acquisition of an Indonesian asset-management company to tap rising affluence in the Southeast Asian nation.

Mirae Asset Global Investment is betting on higher income levels in Indonesia, whose middle class grew by 62 percent from 2003 to 2010, according to World Bank estimates.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley are considering buying brokerages in Indonesia, two people with knowledge of the matter said in September, while South Korea’s Hyundai Securities Co. also said last month it’s considering an acquisition of a brokerage.

The International Monetary Fund predicts Indonesia’s economy, Southeast Asia’s biggest, will expand between 6 percent and 6.5 percent in 2011 and 2012, according to a statement on Oct. 21. Indonesian gross domestic product gained 6.49 percent in the second quarter, compared with growth of 4 percent in neighboring Malaysia and 2.6 percent in Thailand. [Source].

Shopping by phone at South Korea’s virtual grocery

Published on October 26, 2011 in International Business. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Online shopping is nothing new, especially in plugged-in South Korea. But one company says it’s going further. It’s testing out a virtual supermarket in a public place.

At Seolleung underground station in Seoul, there’s a row of brightly lit billboards along the platform, with hundreds of pictures of food and drink – everything from fruit and milk to instant noodles and pet food.

Standing on the platform, a man in his 60s who gives his name as Mr Bae, says it looks to him like an advertisement for a convenience store.

When I explain it’s a virtual supermarket that you access with your smartphone, he doesn’t seem impressed. He says he doesn’t have a smartphone, so it’s not for him. But he says, it’s a good idea for younger Koreans.

And that’s who this virtual supermarket is primarily designed for, according to Homeplus, the South Korean affiliate of the British supermarket chain Tesco [Read more].

Beyond BRICS – FT’s emerging markets hub

Published on October 25, 2011 in Emerging Markets. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Should the Brics bail out the eurozone? Has Chinese growth stalled? Does it pay to play golf in Vietnam?

The FT beyondbrics hub is the place to find out. A news / blog hybrid, it brings together news and views from over 40 correspondents across the emerging markets world [Read more].

Ubiquitous computing: Technology will become even more personal

Published on October 16, 2011 in High Tech & Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Researchers such as Ms Bell conclude that ubiquitous computing, or “ubicomp” to its fans, is no longer the realm of science fiction. In a series of articles in the 1990s Mark Weiser, the chief technologist at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC), laid out a vision of a world in which computers would be everywhere yet all but invisible. Instead of the conventional desktop or laptop, Mr Weiser (who died in 1999) and one of his colleagues, John Seely Brown, predicted that in this new era of “calm technology” gadgets would adapt to people rather than vice versa.

If there is one part of the world where personal technology is on its way towards becoming ubiquitous it is Asia, where several richer countries have created impressive infrastructures on which all sorts of personal technologies can work. South Korea, for instance, plans that every home in the country should have an internet connection with a speed of up to one gigabit per second (fast enough to download a full-length feature film in a matter of seconds). And it also intends greatly to increase the capacity of the country’s wireless-broadband networks [Read more].

Samsung: The next big bet

Published on October 9, 2011 in Emerging Markets and Global Strategy. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

The world’s biggest information-technology firm is diving into green technology and the health business. It should take care; its rivals should take notice.

In 2000 Samsung started making batteries for digital gadgets. Ten years later it sold more of them than any other company in the world. In 2001 it threw resources into flat-panel televisions. Within four years it was the market leader. In 2002 the firm bet heavily on “flash” memory. The technology it delivered made the iPhone and iPad a reality, and made Samsung Apple’s biggest supplier—and now its biggest hardware competitor.

The handsome payoffs from these ballsy bets made the South Korean company a colossus; last year its sales passed $135 billion. Now it is embarking on a similarly audacious plan to move away from electronics into technologies where it barely has a presence today. It intends to spend $20 billion over ten years on solar panels, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) used for lighting, electric-vehicle batteries, medical devices and biotech drugs.

These businesses shift Samsung away from easily substitutable gadgets towards more essential industrial goods (see table)—or from “infotainment” to “lifecare”, as the company puts it. Just as electronics defined swathes of the 20th century, the company believes green technology and health care will be central to the 21st [Read more].

Can Asia surive a global economic slowdown?

Published on August 25, 2011 in Emerging Markets. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Asian markets have been gripped by fears of a slowdown in the global economy.

Weak economic data from the US coupled with the ongoing debt crisis in Europe has raised concerns that growth in the world’s two largest economic zones might slow.

Fears have been fanned further after Morgan Stanley downgraded projections for global growth and said the US and Europe were “dangerously close to recession”.

There are concerns that an uncertain economic outlook will hurt consumer demand in developed countries and affect growth in the export-dependent Asian economies.

Some of Asia’s biggest economies, such as China and Japan, rely heavily on demand from the US and Europe to boost economic growth [Source].

Google takes on Asia: New strategies in Asia’s diverse market

Published on June 14, 2011 in Emerging Markets, Global Strategy and International Business. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Daniel Alegre, Google’s President for Japan and Asia-Pacific, insists that his company is “locally relevant”, as it tries to appeal to the different tastes and internet capabilities of the hugely diverse Asian region.

It signals a shift in the centre of gravity of cyberspace, as Asia becomes the biggest and fastest growing region for the internet.

“Here in Asia… we have very strong competitors. And we thrive on that competition, because it forces us to be better and it forces them to be better and in the end, the internet benefits,” Daniel Alegre says.

The confidence is understandable. Given its global dominance and the new users that the Android operating system is drawing in, Google is still well positioned to challenge the Asian incumbents [Source].

From One-time Imitator to Pioneer

Published on September 3, 2010 in Global Strategy. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Ten years ago, Samsung’s executives poured over numbers and set their 2010 sales goal at $140 billion — four times the amount in 2000. Sales will reach that level this year, according to the median estimate of 21 analysts — right on target. The company is aiming to increase revenue again — this time more than tripling it from 2009 to $400 billion by 2020.

Samsung Electronics has already taken giant steps from its early days as a copycat appliance manufacturer. Now, as a consumer electronics behemoth, it has expanded beyond South Korea and the nation’s industrial, conglomerate-run shipyards, steel mills and auto plants.

“Samsung today is in an incredible position to create the evolution of consumer electronics,” says Shaun Cochran, who heads Korean research at brokerage CLSA Asia-Pacific, which rates Samsung Electronics a “buy.” To be successful, Samsung — a company with a history of top-down managers and obedient employees — will need to shift strategy, a process for which it has few guideposts.

For the one-time imitator to become a pioneer, hitting the numbers will be just the beginning [Source 1] [Source 2].

Is Korea Losing its Digital Edge?

Published on February 18, 2010 in High Tech & Media. 0 Comments Tags: .

How Korea, a onetime digital trendsetter, became a laggard in an era of smartphones—and amazing apps.

Even though Korea is home to the number two and three global handset maker, respectively Samsung and LG it losing ground in setting the pace and guiding the mobile (notably smartphone) industry. As in result, the Korean government had been preparing to shift focus to software from hardware for about a year, but the iPhone sensation provided a wake-up call. Initiatives such as launching a state-funded program to nurture software start-ups. The Ministry of Knowledge Economy is budgeting some $880 million to back software companies over the next three years. It aims to double the number of Korean software engineers to 300,000 in 2013 from 2008 and triple software exports to $15 billion.

Nonetheless, despite the government’s software worries, Korea has had some notable successes. Such as in gaming (online fantasy game Lineage),social networking service Cyworld, which was launched earlier than Facebook, is dominant in Korea. After eight years of offering Korean-language search, Google has just 2% of the market, compared with 64% held by Naver [Source].

Google Korea Unveils New Homepage

Published on December 9, 2009 in Emerging Markets and Global Strategy. 0 Comments Tags: , .

googleKorea

Google Korea has unveiled a new homepage that radically breaks out of the company’s trademark scantiness. Google’s Korean homepage now displays more content right up on its front page, featuring popular search keywords, most searched-for people (“who’s hot”), and the directory of Google Korea’s services.

It remains to be seen if Google Korea’s move will help or hurt the company to gain more turf in this tough Korean market, but one thing is very clear: This is a very big move by Google. This new, content-rich homepage is only available in Korea — and this is worlds apart from Google’s seemingly unrelented pursuit of simpleness.

In a way, this shows Google is very much committed to the Korean market, even to the point where the company is willing to ditch its hallmark simpleness, something many in and out of the company has long regarded to be near impossible. Will Koreans like this move and pay more visit to Google Korea for their internet search? The jury is still very much out.