KAI Aims at 10 Trillion Won of New Orders, 3 Trillion Won of Sales This Year

Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) aims to reach 10 trillion won (US$9.1 billion) worth of new orders and 3 trillion won (US$2.7 billion) of sales as this year's business goal.

On Jan. 29, KAI held a chief financial officer (CFO) meeting targeting stock firm researchers at Yeouido in Seoul, and announced its business goal for this year.

Lee Dong-shin, CFO of KAI, said, “We set this year's goal of obtaining orders at 10 trillion won, an 322 percent increase from last year, and the balance of obtained orders will surpass 18 trillion won at the end of this year.”

KAI expected that its sales will increase to 3.001 trillion won (US$2.7426 billion), up 30 percent from a year ago.

KAI plans to achieve this year's business goal through Korean Fighter eXperimental (KF-X), projects of light-armed helicopters (LAH) and light-civil helicopters (LCH), exports of the FA-50, and fulfilling orders for aircraft structures.

The KAI has lowered the importance of its military products to 50 percent, which used to be 85 percent of the total sales just after its establishment.

KAI plans to make 10 trillion won (US$9.1 billion) of revenue by 2020, and among that, 8 trillion won (US$7.3 billion) will be achieved by exports and civilian demand.

In the meantime, KAI reported that it made 2.3 trillion won (US$2.1 billion) in sales and 161.3 billion won (US$147.4 million) in operating profit this year, which is the highest performance since the company's foundation. Sales increased 15 percent from last year, with operating profit increasing 30 percent.