Half of 50 Groups Suffer a Drop in Net Profit
The Financial Supervisory Service announced on May 2 that the corporate tax payment of South Korea’s top 50 business groups in terms of market cap, which account for approximately 40 percent of the country’s GDP, dropped by no less than 62 percent from 28 trillion won or so last year.
“The corporate tax payment of a total of 32 out of the 50 decreased last year,” it explained, adding, “For example, Samsung Electronics’ payment dropped from more than 10 trillion won to 2,462.2 billion won and that of SK Hynix plummeted more than 90 percent from 5,098.3 billion won to 268 billion won.”
A total of 10 groups showed a decrease of more than 90 percent last year, including SK Telecom, Samsung Life Insurance, SK Bioscience, Hanwha Solutions, LG Display, KT and Hyundai Steel as well as SK Hynix.
The net profits of exactly half of the 50 groups decreased and nine were in the red in 2020. In 2018, 16 out of the 50 posted an annual net profit of at least one trillion won. However, 12 did so in 2019 and 14 did so in 2020.
Only six out of the 50 succeeded in increasing their net profits for the third consecutive year in 2020. Those are Naver, Celltrion, LG, KT&G, SK Bioscience and Kumho Petrochemical. On the other hand, the net profits of Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, LG Chem, Samsung C&T, Samsung SDS, Lotte Chemical and S-Oil decreased for the third consecutive year.