Seoul (South Korea), October 25: POSCO, the world's fifth-largest steelmaker by output, said Monday its third-quarter net profit rose more than fourfold from a year earlier on robust demand amid the global economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Net profit reached 2.63 trillion won (US$2.24 billion) on a consolidated basis in the July-September period, compared with a profit of 510 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Operating income also more than quadrupled to a record high of 3.12 trillion won, and sales rose 44.7 percent on-year to reach 20.64 trillion won.
The steelmaker attributed the robust performance to firm demand from automakers, shipbuilders and construction companies, and an increase in prices of key products that offset a rise in the cost of raw materials, such as iron ore.
Earlier, local steelmakers and shipbuilders agreed to raise the price of steel plates used for shipbuilding to 1.1 million won per ton during the second half of the year, from 700,000 won in the first half.
On a standalone basis, POSCO logged an operating income of 2.3 trillion won on sales of 11.3 trillion won during the third quarter of the year.
POSCO said it has sold 9.02 million tons of steel products, up 23,000 tons from the previous quarter, and its domestic sales accounted for 61.2 percent of the total in the third quarter, up 1.3 percentage points over the cited period.
POSCO expects its sales and investment to reach 74.16 trillion won and 5.4 trillion won this year, respectively.
The steelmaker said it would produce 38.2 million tons of crude steel and aims to sell 35.7 million tons of steel products this year.
Source: Xinhua