Daily Woody Weekly Recap | May 2, 2026 — Samsung's 57T, Yoon's 7 years, and the war's bill
Samsung Electronics on April 30 reported first-quarter operating profit of KRW 57.2 trillion (about USD 41 billion), up 756.1% year on year. Quarterly revenue reached KRW 133.9 trillion, both figures the highest in the company's history. The result beat market consensus of KRW 45.7 trillion by more than 25%.
The Device Solutions semiconductor division delivered KRW 53.7 trillion of that profit, or 94% of the company total. SK Hynix posted KRW 37.6 trillion in operating profit for the same quarter, bringing combined Korean memory profit above KRW 91 trillion. Samsung's memory chief Kim Jae-jun told analysts that "this year's HBM capacity is already sold out" and that orders for 2027 are arriving early.
The stock briefly broke KRW 230,000 on April 30, a record, before pulling back on profit-taking. The single-quarter profit already exceeds Samsung's full-year 2025 result.
The Seoul High Court on April 29 sentenced former president Yoon Suk-yeol to seven years in prison on appeal, two years longer than the lower court's five-year sentence. The case concerns Yoon's actions around his short-lived December 3, 2024 martial-law declaration, including obstruction of arrest, deletion of secure-phone records, and a falsified post-event proclamation.
The appellate panel upheld every count from the first trial and additionally convicted Yoon of two charges previously dismissed: obstruction of cabinet members' deliberation rights, and directing the foreign-press dissemination of false statements about the martial law. The defense indicated it will appeal to the Supreme Court. A day earlier, Yoon's spouse Kim Keon-hee received a four-year appellate sentence in the Deutsche Motors stock-manipulation case, also heavier than her first-instance term.
The court that issued this ruling is officially named the "Insurrection Trial Bench" — a panel created specifically to handle prosecutions arising from the December 3 martial-law episode. Its existence is itself a legal acknowledgment that the case sits outside conventional categories.
President Trump declared US-Iran ceasefire negotiations collapsed on April 25. Brent crude touched USD 126 a barrel on April 30, its highest since June 2022, on a nine-session winning streak — the longest run of gains since May 2022.
For Korea, a heavy oil importer, the second-order effects came fast. The Financial Services Commission held an emergency meeting on April 27. The same day, the Ministry of the Interior began first-round payments of a "high-oil-price relief subsidy" of KRW 100,000 to 600,000 per person for the bottom 70% of households. Presidential chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik said on April 24 that April crude imports had fallen to 57% of normal levels, but that 74.6 million barrels (87% of normal) were secured for May through Mideast-bypass routes.
Korea has trimmed its Middle East crude dependence from 69% to 56% in a matter of weeks, with 39.99 million barrels from Saudi Arabia and the UAE being routed around the Strait of Hormuz. The detour costs 50% to 80% more in shipping.
On the evening of April 25 (April 26 KST), 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen breached the security perimeter of the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner at the Washington Hilton with a shotgun, a handgun, and three knives. A Secret Service agent took a chest hit but was saved by body armor. President Trump, Vice President Vance, and other senior officials evacuated safely.
Allen was charged on April 27 with attempted assassination of the president and faces a possible life sentence. Prosecutors said his pre-attack statement to family targeted "administration officials — the high-ranking ones first." This is the third direct attempt on Trump's life since 2024, after the July 13, 2024 Butler, Pennsylvania rally shooting and the September 15, 2024 West Palm Beach golf-course incident. It is the first such attempt since he took office.
President Lee Jae-myung hosted the 2026 Labor Day ceremony at the Blue House on May 1, telling attendees that "respecting labor is not a matter of consideration or charity. Growth without labor is half a thing — and not sustainable."
For the first time at a presidentially-hosted Labor Day event, both the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) attended. The two have historically sat at opposite ends of Korea's labor-relations spectrum.
Effective in 2026, Korea reclassified Labor Day from a private-sector "Workers' Day" (๊ทผ๋ก์์ ๋ ) into a full national public holiday, and renamed it Nodongjeol (๋ ธ๋์ ) — literally "Labor Day." The change matters because Korea's labor calendar has historically distinguished between unionized private workers and the rest of the public-sector workforce.
Two Korean macro readings beat expectations within a week. The Bank of Korea's April 23 advance estimate showed Q1 real GDP growing 1.7% quarter-on-quarter (3.6% year-on-year), helped by a supplementary budget and semiconductor exports. Then on April 30, combined Q1 operating profit at Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix crossed KRW 91 trillion (about USD 65 billion).
The Bank of Korea's April 28 business-sentiment survey showed the composite Business Survey Index recovering to 94.9, up after a one-month dip. Services, especially retail and wholesale, remained weak.
The central bank's own April assessment cautioned that "despite strong semiconductor performance and the supplementary budget, growth will likely slow more than initially expected due to the supply shock from the Middle East war." Inflation pressure from oil, the report noted, has expanded materially.
| Date | Conditions | Morning low | Daytime high |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 2 (Sat) | Cloudy | 8–16℃ | 19–26℃ |
| May 3 (Sun) | Rain nationwide | 10–15℃ | 14–19℃ |
| May 4 (Mon) | Cloudy → clearing | 7–12℃ | 16–20℃ |
| May 5 (Tue) | Mostly sunny | 8–14℃ | 18–24℃ |
The last week of April handed Korea two numbers of very different character. Seven years — the appellate sentence for a former president whose December 3 episode briefly tested civilian rule. And KRW 57 trillion — one company's operating profit for a single quarter, larger than its entire prior year. The first is the judiciary adding weight to a recent past. The second is the market adding time to a near future.
Between those two numbers, Korea's two largest labor federations sat at the same Labor Day table for the first time. That move alone took years to arrive. The country's internal clock seems to be moving slowly, but in one direction.
Outside that clock, Korea's April crude imports fell to 57% of normal, Brent briefly touched USD 126, and an armed man tried to enter a Washington dinner where the US president was dining. It is rare for a single week to reveal so plainly how differently the inside and the outside of a country are running. The week ahead will tell us which clock we end up watching more.
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