Individuals crowd round an AI Fortune Teller on the SK sales space throughout the CES tech present in Las Vegas, Jan. 10, 2024. AP-Yonhap
Korean conglomerates are set to cut back their presence on the CES 2026 tech truthful, transferring to bolster their groupwide inside administration and maintain a low profile in main abroad promotional actions amid mounting enterprise uncertainties at residence and overseas.
SK Group has determined to drastically cut back the size of its participation on the earth’s largest tech exhibition subsequent 12 months, as most of its key associates are targeted on realigning their enterprise methods and tightening inside stability within the face of drastic earnings falls.
SK hynix is the one affiliate from the group that may maintain a promotional sales space and closed-door assembly room throughout CES 2026, scheduled for Jan. 6 to 9. SK hynix posted a file working revenue of 28 trillion received ($18.95 billion) within the first three quarters of this 12 months on account of strong demand for its high-bandwidth reminiscence (HBM) chips.
Nonetheless, most different key subsidiaries, together with SK Telecom and SK Innovation, is not going to promote their latest applied sciences throughout the upcoming occasion on account of escalating enterprise uncertainties.
SK Telecom skilled an earnings shock within the third quarter, with working revenue plunging 90.9 % from a 12 months earlier on account of its publicity to an enormous buyer knowledge leak. SK Innovation’s battery enterprise additionally reported an working lack of 124.8 billion received throughout the identical interval.
Their absence from CES 2026 is a pointy departure from SK Group’s years-long participation within the occasion. Since 2019, the nation’s second-largest conglomerate by market capitalization has operated a groupwide joint sales space at CES to showcase the most recent technological developments from its key associates.
Hyundai Motor Group Govt Chair Chung Euisun takes the stage with Spot, a robotic developed by Boston Dynamics, throughout the Hyundai information convention on the CES tech present in Las Vegas, Jan. 4, 2022. AP-Yonhap
Given SK hynix’s booming HBM enterprise, nonetheless, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won is extensively anticipated to go to Las Vegas for CES 2026 to forge deeper ties with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and different key abroad purchasers.
HD Hyundai is one other main Korean conglomerate that shall be absent from the upcoming tech truthful. In 2024, HD Hyundai’s then-Vice Chairman Chung Ki-sun delivered a keynote speech at CES. The shipbuilding agency had participated within the occasion for 3 consecutive years from 2022 to 2024.
Nonetheless, the corporate has determined to not promote its newest applied sciences and merchandise for subsequent 12 months’s occasion, as Chung, who was promoted to chairman in October, has been tasked with main the Make American Shipbuilding Nice Once more undertaking with the US. The initiative is a significant commerce partnership between Korea and the U.S. meant to revive the latter’s shipbuilding business beneath a collaboration with Korea’s top-tier shipbuilders.
Regardless of their absence, three of Korea’s prime 4 conglomerates — Samsung, LG and Hyundai Motor — will have interaction in lively promotional actions throughout the upcoming tech truthful. Whereas it stays unclear whether or not Samsung Electronics Govt Chairman Lee Jae-yong and LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo will attend CES, Hyundai Motor Group Govt Chair Chung Euisun is predicted to take action, as he did two years earlier.
“Korea’s key industries shall be uncovered to mounting enterprise dangers even into subsequent 12 months on account of a number of points, together with the U.S. tariff and a home company tax hike, and these are main main massive tech companies to skip subsequent 12 months’s CES and as an alternative place a extra strategic give attention to strengthening their inside stability,” an business official stated.
