Kia Motors Q3 net profit jumps 20.8% on-year

South Korea's No. 2 automaker Kia Motors Corp. said Thursday that its third quarter net profit jumped 20.8 percent from a year earlier despite a slight drop in sales.

In the July-September period, Kia Motors' net profit came to 664.3 billion won ($583.23 million) on a consolidated basis, compared with a net profit of 550.1 billion won in the same period last year, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Sales dropped 3.1 percent on-year to some 12.7 trillion won over the cited period, with operating profit plunging 22.5 percent to 524.8 billion won.

"The company's accumulated sales and operating profit expanded in the first three quarters of the year on the launch of new vehicle models and weakening of the local currency, but in the third quarter, its operating profit dropped significantly due to reduced output caused by labor strikes and strengthening of the South Korean won," a company official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In the first nine months of the year, the company's sales came to about 39.8 trillion won, up 8.4 percent from the same period last year, the company said in a press release.

Operating profit gained 4.9 percent on-year to some 1.93 trillion won over the cited period, while its net profit jumped 10.7 percent to 2.43 trillion won.

The rise in sales revenue came despite a 2.1 percent drop in the number of vehicles sold in the January-September period.

Kia Motors attributed the increase to a rise in sales of large, high-end vehicles.

"Small, compact cars accounted for 46.2 percent of total sales in the first nine months of the year, down from 49.1 percent in the same period last year, while the portion of SUVs expanded to 38.1 percent from 33.8 percent over the cited period," a company official said.

Kia Motors shares were trading at 41,350 won per shares as of 10:30 a.m., down 0.24 percent from the previous session's close. (Yonhap)