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Global EV and plug-in hybrid deliveries reached 11.8 million units in the first seven months of 2026, up 6.3% from a year earlier, according to market researcher SNE Research's data released Sept. 8. Hyundai Motor and Kia delivered 442,000 of those units, a 24.2% jump that far outpaced the global average. Despite that growth, a faster-rising rival knocked the group down a notch — from seventh place last year to eighth.

The company that leapfrogged Hyundai Motor Group is Chery Automobile, a fast-rising Chinese automaker. Chery delivered 468,000 units, up 34.2% year over year, taking over the group's old spot. China's BYD kept the overall top ranking but actually saw deliveries fall 17.9% to 1.816 million units, with its market share also slipping. Geely held on to second place with 1.172 million units, a modest increase, while Tesla came in third with 943,000 deliveries and grew its market share from the mid-7% range to 8%. Ninth-place Leapmotor surged 67.1% to 418,000 units, nipping right at Hyundai Motor Group's heels.

Regional results told a mixed story. China, still the world's largest EV market by far, delivered 6.366 million units — but that was down 8.2% from a year earlier, and its share of the global total slipped to just above half. Europe, by contrast, grew 29.2% to 2.966 million units, pushing its share up to roughly a quarter of the global market, while Asia excluding China surged more than 77% to 1.114 million units. North America was the outlier, falling 22.7% to 790,000 units — the only major region posting a clear decline.

Industry watchers say a recovery in European sales and rising demand across Asia outside China are what drove Hyundai Motor Group's numbers up. The group plans to keep expanding its share with new models like the Ioniq 3 and Kia EV2. SNE Research flagged three swing factors for the rest of the year: how much further China's domestic market cools off, how long the gap left by the lapsed EV tax credit in the US persists, and whether Europe's growth streak holds up. The firm also noted that as Chinese automakers push harder into overseas markets, competition is shifting beyond raw sales volume toward local manufacturing capacity, pricing strategy and supply-chain resilience.

Kakao is taking the wraps off its AI game plan next month at an annual developer event held at its Yongin campus. Now in its eighth year, the conference carries a slogan built around adding intelligence to the connections Kakao has spent years building, and it's shaping up as the company's main venue for sharing service and technical progress with its developer community.

On day one, CEO Shina Jeong takes the stage to walk through the company's AI direction and the products built around it. She'll be followed by the head of design, who'll cover how Kakao designs services around user context, and the lead of Kakao's unified foundation model effort, who'll detail progress and plans for the in-house model powering its agentic AI push — known as Kanana. The company's CTO will close out with a talk on what it takes to build AI responsibly and safely.

Day two is themed around the moment technology earns trust. Expect sessions on governance, service reliability, infrastructure, and how AI is reshaping the development process itself. Dozens of technical sessions — including ones led by developers from Kakao affiliates — run across the two days, alongside speaker Q&As and networking programming for attendees.

Registration is open on Kakao's official site through noon at the end of this month; attendees are selected by lottery and notified individually in early October. The keynote and other major sessions will stream live online, with full session recordings available on demand after the event wraps.

At a home appliance trade show in Berlin on Sept. 5, LG Electronics HS Business Division head EVP Baek Seung-tae told Korean reporters that talks to sell robot actuators to outside customers have advanced considerably. He said the company is already in supply negotiations with several global tech giants and plans to meet with one of them next month to go over production readiness and technical details. He added that he hoped to share good news soon — a hint that a deal may be close.

An actuator bundles a motor, reducer, and drive unit into a single part that governs a robot's movement — essentially its joints and muscles. Because this one component can account for well over half the material cost of building a robot, whoever supplies it has significant sway over a robot maker's cost competitiveness. LG Electronics first unveiled its in-house AXIUM brand at CES in Las Vegas earlier this year and is now producing an initial run at its plant in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province.

Baek pointed to 60 years of motor-manufacturing know-how as the company's edge, citing high-speed motor technology capable of spinning more than 100,000 times per minute along with design expertise for building parts that are both light and inexpensive. Reducers are a relatively weaker area, so LG is combining in-house development with outside sourcing, he said, and plans to expand its nine-variant lineup — split by power output and size — to fit customer needs.

The actuator push is part of a broader shift for LG Electronics away from consumer sales and toward business-to-business revenue. B2B currently makes up just over 10% of HS division revenue; with built-in appliances and commercial washers already contributing, the company is counting on actuators as a third pillar to push that share higher. LG expects actuator sales to reach the scale of its existing external compressor business within one to two years.

Robotics is also a priority at the group level. Chairman Koo Kwang-mo met with Nvidia's CEO last month to discuss cooperation on physical AI and robotics, and LG Electronics is developing multiple robot platforms, including wheeled and bipedal designs. Baek said the company plans to validate the technology in industrial settings before moving to home use, and that humanoid robots will soon be deployed at its Tennessee plant and its Changwon smart factory.

The awards, announced on the trade show's opening day, saw both companies land honors across multiple categories — a notable feat given that judges weighed not just technical performance but design and market impact too. Korean electronics makers ended up clustered near the top of the rankings across the board.

LG's headline reveal was ThinQ Chalo, a new AI agent that builds on the company's existing ThinQ On smart-home hub. Instead of relying on voice commands, users can simply message the system through the messenger apps they already use — and it responds by inferring their location and movements to proactively suggest actions, like switching on the air conditioner before they get home. It can also fold in everyday details, like a kid's schedule or a photo of groceries, to suggest broader routines for the household. LG plans to launch a domestic beta this month with an eye toward a full commercial rollout by year-end, and says it's also weighing subscription plans and bundled appliance packages down the line.

On the hardware side, LG's ultra-thin, wall-hugging TV took the top prize in the home entertainment category for its picture quality and design, coming in at roughly 9 millimeters thick. A separate audio system that automatically detects speaker placement to build an immersive soundstage won the top award in its own category. Five more products — an upgraded OLED TV, two premium LCD lineups, a portable screen and a party-ready Bluetooth speaker — picked up additional merit awards.

Samsung's standout was its wall-mounted Bespoke Wind-Free air conditioner, which won in two categories at once. Its flat, minimalist front panel with vents tucked along the bottom is designed to blend in like a piece of furniture, while a built-in radar sensor tracks where people are in the room to fine-tune airflow direction. In refrigerators, a model with a large touchscreen and voice recognition won in the design category, and a four-door model engineered to fully open its doors even in tight kitchens won in the appliance category. The large-screen fridge also pairs with an external AI engine — reportedly Google's Gemini — to recognize groceries stored inside.