April 25, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] The operating profit margin of Korean companies hit a record high in the first three months of the year on the back of brisk sales of semiconductors, central bank data showed on June 15.

The operating profit to sales ratio of the country’s non-financial companies reached 7.4 percent in the January-March period, up from 7.1 percent a year earlier, according to the data from the Bank of Korea.

It is the highest quarterly figure since the BOK started compile such data in 2015.

The pretax net profit margin also posted an all-time high of 8.2 percent in the first quarter. It was 8 percent in the first three months of 2017. But their sales slowed down sharply to 3.4 percent from 7.9 percent over the same period.

Manufacturing companies posted a 3.4 percent on-year gain in sales in the first quarter, while their operating profit rate also widened to a record 8.8 percent. Non-manufacturers’ sales also rose 3.4 percent on-year in the three-month period, with their operating profit margin totaling 5.4 percent.

In particular, first quarter sales in the machinery and electronics sectors jumped 11.7 percent on-year, and their operating profit soared 15.4 percent.

The data was based on a sample survey of 3,324 out of 16,645 companies with 12 billion won (US$11 million) in assets.

By Song Seung-hyun and newswires (ssh@heraldcorp.com)