Large Enterprises Earned 10-20 Pct. More This Year

Business Performance of large enterprises such as Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motors for the first quarter of this year has been improved 10-20 percent compared to the same period of last year and some has doubled its operational benefits compared to the 4th quarter of last year.

According to the sources from industrial sector and securities business, the sales and operational profits in most areas including Electronics, Autos, and Chemistry recorded 10-200 percent increase during the first quarter of this year compared to the last quarter of last year.

Such a boom of business seems to signal that the overall object economy just got out of stagnation.

Particularly, since domestic demands and exports are expected to make steady progress in the second quarter thanks to World Cup and local government election, not a little companies are likely to record their greatest net profits this year.

Samsung Electronics, which will announce its achievement of business performance on 19th, is anticipated to have earned 1 trillion 500 billion won of net profit from the sales of 9-10 trillion won in the first quarter by the effect of rising semiconductor price and increasing sales of digital electronic appliances.

The net profit of the company, which has increased over 20 percent, will be exceeding 30-50 percent over the anticipation of analysts, that was, 1 trillion 100 billion won of net profit.

Samsung is expected to record 6 trillion 850 billion won of net profit this year, breaking its previous record of 6 trillion 14.5 billion won in 2000.

LG also recorded 10 percent growth in its sales (4 trillion 420 billion won) by the bull market of electronic appliances and mobile phones and the company`s operational profit is expected to be doubled (320 billion won) in this period. The annual operational profit is expected to increase 35 percent up to 1 trillion won.

However, steel industries are likely to have a little difficulty by the plunge of export price.

Meanwhile, according to the survey of 21 major business areas by Korea Employers Federation on the economic prospects in the second quarter of this year, domestic demands and exports were anticipated to increase, except for steel, textiles, and cement businesses.

Yeon-Su Sin ysshin@donga.com · Chan-Sun Hong hcs@donga.com