Sales of top 100 unlisted firms more than quadruple over 3 years

Sales of major high-growth unlisted companies in South Korea have risen more than four times over the past three years with online distributors and bio firms posting explosive growth, a corporate tracker said Wednesday.

The combined top line of the country's top 100 unlisted companies came to 20.4 trillion won ($17.8 billion) last year, up a whopping 323 percent from three years earlier, according to CEO Score.

The companies, chosen from more than 11,500 businesses nationwide, don't belong to local business groups and have average annual sales of 10 billion won or more over the last three years.

Distribution companies registered the highest growth rate of 523.5 percent with their sales soaring to 1.6 trillion won from 263 billion won over the cited period.

Sales of manufacturers of daily necessities soared 426 percent during the three-year period, followed by service firms with 397 percent.

Pharmaceutical and bio firms, automakers and auto parts manufacturers, and textile and clothing companies also saw their sales shoot up more than 300 percent over the cited period.

Kurly, the operator of online grocery delivery platform Market Kurly, logged the highest sales growth rate of 1,942 percent, with its top line rising from 46.6 billion won to 950.9 billion won.

Veterinary diagnostics device maker Bionote Co. saw its sales skyrocketing 1,801 percent to 631.3 billion won last year from 33.1 billion won in 2017.

Total assets of the top 100 firms stood at 15.7 trillion won as of end-2020, up from slightly over 7 trillion won in 2018, according to CEO Score. (Yonhap)