Kakao has decided to take a step back in its conflict with Google over forced in-app payment by giving up its outlink payment method. As a result, a prolonged suspension of Kakao Talk updates or the deletion of Kakao Talk application in the app market is unlikely to take place.Kakao officials met wi
The authors are analysts of Shinhan Investment Corp. They can be reached at sokang@shinhan.com and kimaram@shinhan.com, respectively. -- Ed. Success of Mir M to drive full-fledged earnings growthMir M, released on 23 June, currently ranks fourth on Google Play in terms of gross sales. Daily average
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at jaemin.ahn@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Kakao Games is achieving sales diversification via the success of Umamusume. Despite concerns over the IPO of subsidiaries, expectations remain in play for 2H22 earnings growth and new lineup lau
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at hwdoh@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Memory supply-demand improvement is likely to be delayed due to macroeconomic factors. Demand for smartphones and PCs is sluggish. Demand related to data center investment is likely to fall somewhat i
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. She can be reached at hzl.lee@nhqv.com. -- Ed. The ad market is to make a mild and steady earnings recovery on the resumption of advertising execution and BTL marketing in industries situated to benefit from economic re-opening. While stricter
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at kyuha.lee@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Recently, SEMCO’s share price has been declining, affected by both tepid smartphone shipments at Chinese makers and fears over substrate business conditions. But, given both a likely recovery in s
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at kyuha.lee@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Global smartphone shipments have come in sluggish as of late, affected by lockdowns in China due to the re-spreading of Covid-19 and global economic slowdown. In the short term, however, shipments
The author is an analyst of KB Securities. He can be reached at joonsop.analyst@kbfg.com. -- Ed. Maintain BUY, target price of KRW19,000 We maintain BUY and TP of KRW19,000 on LG Uplus. We expect (1) better visibility on B2B earnings growth, (2) stronger shareholder return policy and (3) benefits fr
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at hwdoh@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Paradoxically, the unstable macro situation, including the recent rise in interest rates and the war between Russia and Ukraine, should help memory semiconductor supply/demand. Memory makers are stren
The author is an analyst of KB Securities. He can be reached at joonsop.analyst@kbfg.com. -- Ed. Maintain BUY, target price of KRW19,000 We maintain BUY and TP of KRW19,000 for LGU based on B2B earnings visibility, benefits from the stabilizing B2C market and hope for a more favorable shareholder re
U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol stressed the importance of the two countries’ technology alliance all the way through their recent summit. In this regard, experts point out that South Korea needs to increase its investment in the AI chip industry, which is still in
EOFlow Co., a provider of wearable drug delivery solutions, has officially launched an iOS version of ‘Narsha,’ a smartphone application for wearable insulin pump in Korea.It has been nine months since the company officially launched the Android application of Narsha. Narsha is the world’s first sma
Samsung Electronics’ ranking in the Forbes' list of the World’s Largest Tech Companies slid by two notches from second place in 2021 to fourth in 2022.Forbes discloses the Global 2000 annually by comprehensively evaluating major global companies in terms of four indicators -- sales, net income,
The Office of the United States Trade Representative emailed the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy on April 22, immediately after a network usage fee-related bill was discussed at the National Assembly, to claim that the bill may lead to a trade conflict.“The office enumerated the potential ris
SK Telecom will launch the Korean metaverse platform Ifland in Europe in cooperation with Germany’s leading telecommunication operator Deutsche Telekom.SK Square will also launch One Store app market in Europe in partnership with the German telecom operator.SK Telecom and SK Square officials, includ
In the first quarter of 2022, Samsung Electronics accounted for 28 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, the highest in eight years, considerably narrowing its market share gap with Apple.According to Counterpoint Research, Apple came in first at 47 percent. Motorola took third place with 12 percen
The authors are analysts of NH Investment & Securities. They can be reached at hwdoh@nhqv.com and jiyong.im@nhqv.com, respectively. -- Ed. During their 1Q22 earnings calls, big tech firms in the US announced that they would scale up 2022 investment in AI and cloud services. As a result, demand for s
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at jaemin.ahn@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Expectations towards NCSOFT’s new game releases are to be reflected bit by bit from 2H22. Its 1Q22 results should arrive solid on Lineage W effects.Looking forward to new titles in 2H22- We maint
Apple will introduce an in-app third-party payment system in June, in accordance with the related law that bans app store operators from requiring developers to only use their own in-app payment systems.Apple's new billing system is similar to the one Google introduced in December 2021, causing
Samsung Electronics submitted its opinion to the U.S. Department of Commerce on March 23 on how the U.S. semiconductor industry can further grow. The same form was submitted by SK Hynix, TSMC, Intel, ASML, AMD, Infineon and Google. Samsung Electronics said in its written opinion that whether to give