The combined sales of firms in South Korea’s top 500 companies have surpassed the 700 trillion won (US$545 billion) threshold for the first time, in the first quarter, thanks to strong performance from chip, electronics, petrochemical and automakers, corporate tracker CEO Score said Tuesday.
The total gross sales of 344 of South Korea’s top 500 companies, in terms of sales, came in at just over 793 trillion won (US$620.181 million), in the January-March period, which is up 19, 8 percent more than in the first quarter of last year, according to the tracker.
The 344 corporations are those that have disclosed their financial statements for the first three months of the year.
By sectors, the electronics, electrical and information technology industry, which includes chip manufacturing, posted the highest sales at 143.3 trillion won (US$112.071 million).
It was followed by the petrochemical sector, with 101.4 billion won (79,263 million dollars), the automobile and its parts, with 80.4 billion won (62,847 million dollars), insurance, with 67.2 billion won (52,529 million dollars), and securities, with 48.2 billion won (37,677 million dollars).
By comparison, the shipbuilding, machinery and equipment industry suffered a year-on-year drop of 2.7 percent, and the communications sector also saw a 1.8 percent drop in sales.
Global tech titan Samsung Electronics, the flagship unit of South Korea’s leading family-owned conglomerate Samsung Group, remained the largest company in the first quarter, with gross sales of 77.8 trillion won ($60.859 million). Dollars).
The combined operating income of those companies came to 62.3 trillion won (US$48.734 million) in the three-month period, up 5.4 percent year on year.
Samsung Electronics also posted the highest operating income at 14.1 trillion won (US$11.032 million), up 50.5 percent year on year, according to CEO Score.