SK Telecom Co.,South Korea’s top mobile operator reported a two-fold growth in its Q4 profit in 2012. They claimed that this was due to a decrease in marketing costs – meaning what? The results come as the country’s three mobile operators ― SK Telecom, KT Corp. and LG Uplus Corp. ― have been slowing down their marketing drive recently amid the communications watchdog’s move to cool market competition. In December last year, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) fined the three firms a combined 11.9 billion won and imposed business suspensions for giving out excessive subsidies to lure LTE subscribers.

Last week, Samsung made its biggest run yet at the iPhone’s loyalists by unveiling the new Galaxy S4 – this was done at Times Square, a few blocks away from Apple’s flagship store in New York. The event had big implications because it was at Apple’s home ground. What are some of the implications for Samsung’s launch?

For the first time this year, cheaper and smaller devices gained favor with the consumers. Google surpassed Apple in tablets — Google’s software will power more tablets than Apple’s, or so Bloomberg reported. It is expected that Google’s shares will rise to 49% in 2013, while Apple’s share will dip to 46% – last year they had 51%, and Google had 46%. Tablets from Google, and products from Samsung and Amazon are gaining favor due to their prices; the prices start at around $200, which is less than half the cost of the newest iPad model. iPad Mini was released to defend their market dominance amid mounting competition.

Samsung Galaxies – the specs, the evolution. Samsung’s Galaxy was first launched in 2010, and 20 million were sold. Samsung Galaxy S2 sold 28 million and was launched a year after that. Samsung Galaxy S3 was launched in 2012 and sold 50 million. Galaxy S4 was launched in 2013 and is available in 155 countries.

“There is energy in the Philippine startup ecosystem and it’s being powered by WebGeek.” This was John Arce’s cry, so we decided to take a look at the scene, with his guidance to determine what is happening in one of the hottest startup hubs in Asia.

It seems that iPad Mini will find itself with yet another competitor in the near future – Galaxy Note 8. The tension between Apple and Samsung is heating up again, with Apple’s iPhone 6 (rumored) and Samsung’s Galaxy S4 both featuring wireless charging.

A potential patent dispute could arise between LG and Samsung, who recently launched the new Galaxy S4. It was revealed that some technologies in the new handset are similar to patents belonging to LG.

Known as ‘The Good Guy VC in Silicon Valley”, Clavier founded SoftTech VC as an early stage venture capital firm that most recently formed a $55M seed stage fund, SoftTech VC III. beLAUNCH is proud to announce that Jeff will be joining us in Seoul on May 1st & 2nd.

용량의 데이터를 저장하기 위한 기업에서는 데이터센터가 존재합니다. 구글은 전세계적으로 16개의 데이터센터를 구축하고 있으며 자사의 데이터 백업 및 분산기능 뿐만 아니라 기업대상으로 서버를 빌려주고 있는 것으로 알려져 있습니다. 하지만 소규모의 기업일 경우 서버를 대여하기에는 돈이 부족하고 그렇다고 데스크탑에 데이터를 저장하기에는 위험부담이 너무나 큽니다. 그래서 등장한 것이 NAS(Network Atteched Storage)입니다.

실리콘 프래리 뉴스(Silicon Prairie News)에 실린 세스 골드스타인의 ‘스타트업 창업자들을 위한 10가지 트위트 조언’을 번역해보았다. 세스 골드스타인의 조언은 짧고 간결하지만 강한 통찰력이 느껴진다.

Organized by TechinAsia.com, Startup Asia is a 2-day conference organized for entrepreneurs, investors, media, and people across the Asian tech community.

Earlier this year we reported that smartphone penetration had reached 60%, and the new figure (only 2 months later) shows that a massive 67% of South Korean mobile subscribers use smartphones.

Galaxy S4 will be launched and have its first public appearance in New York City on March 14. What are some of its specs and what would it mean for fans of Samsung?

프로그래머들을 위한 속담입니다. 공감되시는지요?

The Chinese government will strengthen its position in international trade and domestic performance by nurturing major electronics firms (and it this may threaten South Korean electronics companies). The Chinese government will support major electronics firms such as Huawei, Lenovo, Haier and ZTE until 2015. These companies are also leading the reconstructing and are expanding quickly in terms of both company size and net worth.

We are excited to announce the launch of beLAUNCH India edition in the run up to beLAUNCH 2013 in Seoul.

Pison Contents, a domestic Korean music distributor has finally forged a deal with Spotify to provide K-pop music. Its subsidiary Music Spray will start global distribution of K-pop through Spotify from April 2013next month.

SparkLabs, a startup accelerator in Korea, hosted its first Demo Day today in Seoul, Korea. SparkLabs also announced its expansion into healthcare for its upcoming second class. Sparklabs is founded by Bernard Moon, Hanjoo Lee and Jimmy Kim.

beLAUNCH and GMIC have formed a strategic alliance to leverage the most from our flagship Asian startup events. beSUCCESS and The GWC will also be engaged in a long term alliance, bringing two of Asia’s heavyweight startup facilitators together, towards the achievement of our joint vision.

A decision has been made by a presidential committee to cancel regulatory measures on Web board games, citing a lack of legal grounding for the measures. Gaming shares have surged as a result.