South Korea's Youth Future Savings Plan closed its initial enrollment with 1.385 million subscribers, prompting the Financial Services Commission to consider an additional sign-up round in September for young people who missed the original window. Standard plan users made up 983,000, or 70.9%, and preferred plan users totaled 389,000, or 28.1%. Subscribers earning 60 million won to 75 million won a year qualify only for tax-exempt interest income, without government contributions. People aged 25 to 29 formed the largest group at 524,000, followed by 510,000 aged 30 to 34 and 290,000 aged 19 to 24. Analysts said job seekers and early-career workers who missed the first application period should watch the upcoming schedule closely. Elsewhere, South Korean companies are showing momentum across consumer, startup, manufacturing and AI segments. Musinsa Global Store's Japan transaction volume rose 182% year over year in the second quarter after 116% growth in the first, extending triple-digit expansion for a second straight quarter. Ably's overseas platform Amood lifted partner brand transaction volumes by handling translation, customs clearance, delivery and customer service, with Rainy and Jasminebell up 290% and 275% from January to July versus a year earlier. Musinsa is preparing its first offline store in Japan next year and also plans expansion into Taiwan and Hong Kong. In the first half, South Korea's net exports of clothing to Hong Kong reached $104.21 million and bags to Taiwan reached $46.15 million, ranking second and third after the United States and highlighting rising K-fashion demand across Asia. In capital markets, Korea Credit Data is seeking a pre-IPO (fundraising before a stock listing) round worth more than 100 billion won at an implied valuation of about 1.3 trillion won as it steps up IPO preparations. The Cashnote operator reported 162 billion won in consolidated revenue last year, up 13.3% from 2024, while platform revenue jumped 119% to 33.1 billion won. It turned monthly operating profit positive last December and is targeting full-year profitability this year. Hatchtech, a fabless (chip designer without its own factories) semiconductor sensor company, set its KOSDAQ listing price at 23,000 won, the low end of its target range. Its institutional book-building drew 321 investors with a 101.91-to-1 competition ratio, with retail subscription set for the 12th and 13th and listing scheduled for the 25th. The report also points to intensifying competition in robotics and AI. Kong Tao, who previously led ByteDance's robotics team, has been overseeing the foundation model (large AI model trained on broad data) team at Xiaomi's robotics division since last summer, though the move was kept hidden for a year. Xiaomi's robotics unit has about 200 staff working on robot hardware, AI foundation models and robot operating systems. AI-related job postings in China have climbed more than tenfold from a year earlier, and some Tsinghua University computer science PhD graduates have secured starting salaries above 6 million yuan. In industrial automation, Samsung SDS launched its Robot Orchestration business connecting robots with manufacturing execution systems (software for factory operations), while LG CNS and POSCO DX are also speeding up integrated robot-control platforms. In automotive chips, LX Semicon began mass production of its LX61101 motor-control automotive MCU (microcontroller unit) and started supplying Hyundai Motor and Kia in July. The company said a fully domestic supply chain has been established, spanning LX Semicon's design work, Samsung Electronics' foundry production and packaging by domestic OSAT (outsourced semiconductor assembly and test) providers. The automotive MCU market is forecast to expand from 9.03 trillion won in 2026 to 15.06 trillion won in 2033, implying a 7.6% compound annual growth rate.