Performance Forecast
On March 11, Shinhan Investment Corp. lowered the target stock price of Hyundai to 215,000 won (US$190.91), a 12 percent decrease from the existing figure, saying that it forecast poor performance in the first quarter.
Choi Joong-hyuk, analyst at Shinhan Investment, said, “Hyundai Motor will record 21.6756 trillion won [US$19.25 billion] in sales, 1.8153 trillion won [US$1.61 billion] in operating profits and 1.6942 trillion won [US$1.5 billion] in controlling interest net profits in the first quarter.” He also expected that global automobile sales in the first quarter would decrease by 2.5 percent to 1.2 million units from the previous year.
He said, “Even though the sales in the first quarter would be slow, the won-dollar exchange rate, which has increased by 2.9 percent from the previous year, would make up for the shortfall.”
He also added, “As the new Hyundai Tucson is being released in the domestic market in March, it will lead new car sales until the second half of the year.”
This year, Hyundai Motor’s annual auto sales are expected to exceed the estimate.
He said, “The sales in 2015 will reach 91.6509 trillion won [US$81.38 billion], while the operating profit and its rate will amount to 7.6614 trillion won [US$6.8 billion] and 8.4 percent. The sales, estimated at 5.13 million units, exceed nearly 1.6 percent from the annual sales target of 5.05 million units of the company.”