Expanding Overseas Market
Korea Minting, Security Printing & ID Card Operating Corp. (KOMSCO) has declared this year as the first year for the take-off of the company. The company is looking at 500 billion won (US$416.67 million) as its target sales this year and it has decided to accelerate its overseas market invasion by diversifying export products, as well as existing businesses, including banknotes and IDs.
KOMSCO CEO Kim Hwa-dong said, “Last year, the company posted 460 billion won [US$383.33 million] in sales, the highest figure since its founding, and 4.7 billion won [US$3.92 million] in operating profits. In particular, the amount of banknotes, its basic business, increased from 670 million to 740 million, while the figure of coins grew from 520 million to 620 million, up over 10 percent from the previous year. This year, KOMSCO aims to achieve sales of 500 billion won (US$416.67 million) and operating profits of 10 billion won (US$8.33 million), and to strengthen corporate sustainability management by seeking a new future growth engine, developing new security authentication convergence technologies, including biometrics, and promoting business cooperation.”
As the exportation of banknote papers took a favorable turn, the company supplied large-denomination bill papers to Indonesia and 20 and 50-rupee banknote papers, which have silver wire thread partially exposed, to India, one of the largest markets in the world, in 2015, greatly expanding the company’s markets.
In the forgery prevention security paper sector, an increasing number of public test agencies also introduced security papers, which can basically prevent the forgery of test reports. Accordingly, KOMSCO generated additional sales of 3.4 billion won (US$2.83 million), compared to the previous year, as of the end of 2015.
In the ID business sector, the issuance of electronic passports rose from 3.1 million in 2014 to 3.84 million as of the end of last year, and electronic ID cards for public officials achieved additional sales of 7.7 billion won (US$6.42 million) year-on-year. Meanwhile, the company exported electronic voter cards to Kyrgyzstan, solidifying the foundation to export ID products.
Global Komsco Daewoo (GKD), a subsidiary established in Uzbekistan by KOMSCO and Daewoo International, also rang up net profits in 2014 for the first time. Since then, the company has been actively opening new markets. As a result, it exported cotton pulp to Ukraine and recorded 8.1 billion won (US$6.75 million) of sales in August last year, stabilizing the company.