The earnings gaps between the nation’s top two conglomerates ― Samsung and Hyundai Motor ― and other major business groups are widening, data showed on Monday.
Samsung Group and Hyundai Motor Group are expected to take up about 70 percent of earnings reaped by the nation’s 10 largest conglomerates this year, according to chaebul.com, a conglomerate-tracking website.
In terms of operating profit, Samsung Group accounted for 46.2 percent (17.5 trillion won) of the collective 37.9 trillion won by the 10 conglomerates for the first nine months of the year.
Earnings of Hyundai Motor Group came to 8.5 trillion won, taking up 22.4 percent of the 37.9 trillion won over the same period.
The two leading conglomerates’ brisk earnings performances are attributable to Samsung Electronics’ securing the No. 1 position in the global smartphone market and Hyundai-Kia’s record-breaking figure in their automobile market share despite a variety of uncertainties at home and abroad.
In contrast, most of the eight other groups saw their indices for profitability ― operating profit and net profit ― worsen on a year-on-year basis, the data from chaebul.com showed.
Hit by the eurozone fiscal crisis, the eight groups suffered a year-on-year drop in operating profit by 29.4 percent from 17 trillion won to 12 trillion won collectively.
Hyundai Heavy Industries and SK Group reported a 47.1 percent and 31.8 percent fall respectively in operating profit for the first nine months of the year. GS Group saw its earnings drop by 28.5 percent.
Economists’ worries and skepticism over the nation’s economic structure revolve around the fact that the earnings of Samsung Group and Hyundai Motor Group account for a great portion of the nation’s gross domestic product.
Last year, Samsung recorded the highest sales at 270.8 trillion won, accounting for 21.9 percent of GDP, followed by Hyundai Motor with 12.6 percent.
Market capitalization of Samsung Electronics on the main bourse reached 208 trillion won at the end of 2011. This sum is similar to the GDP levels of New Zealand, Peru and Romania.
Further, foreign investors are expanding ownership at Samsung and Hyundai on the stock market, according to chaebul.com.
The economy of Finland was led to “falter” due to its flagship Nokia losing ground in the global mobile telecommunications and smartphone market, former Morgan Stanley economist Andy Xie told a local news provider.
Issuing the possibility that Korea may follow a path similar to Finland, he said it is necessary for the country to “disperse competitiveness” among the other business groups.
By Kim Yon-se (
kys@heraldcorp.com)
