POSCO held its Q3 IR meeting on October 23rd at the Korea
Exchange International Conference Room in Yeouido, Seoul,
announcing 15,739 billion KRW in sales and 1,620 billion KRW
in operating profit, marking 723 billion KRW in net profit
based on consolidated statements.
POSCO alone marked 8.91 trillion KRW in sales and 819 billion
KRW in operating profit. Crude steel production and product
sales reached 9.66 million tons and 8.93 million tons,
respectively. Sales increased slightly compared to the
previous quarter through market and product development, but
sales and operating profits decreased slightly due to falling
product prices.
In Q3, POSCO focused management activities on securing
profitability by differentiating products and reducing costs.
First, World First World Best products increased from 14.8%
last quarter to 15.5%, and automobile steel plate export and
steel plates for energy are also forecasted to increase by
8.2% and 30.6%, by focusing more energy on high value-added
product sales.
The company will also continue to drive cost reduction, so
far achieving 90%, or 959.6 billion KRW, of the goal of
reducing 1.1 trillion KRW this year. Major cost reductions up
to the third quarter include 575 billion KRW in materials,
127 billion KRW in maintenance costs, and 112 billion KRW in
energy. Meanwhile, financial soundness was strengthened in Q3
as the company repaid loans. Debt ratios dropped by 4.3% to
35.9% compared to the previous quarter, and the debt to
equity ratio reached 73.6%, a 2.3% increase compared to last
year.
Marking its lowest in Q3, POSCO forecasted that the demand
industry will slightly recover for stable steel demand, but
as uncertainties still exist in external and internal
management environments, the company will flexibly carry out
investments within the range of cash creation abilities.
Accordingly, the 8.9 trillion KRW consolidated base
investment plans were slightly lowered to 8.4 trillion KRW by
adjusting execution timing based on investment
priorities.
During the remainder of the second half of the year, POSCO
will focus more on high value-added product sales, reducing
costs, and improving global technology leadership, while
continuing efforts to maximize synergy between related
companies by gathering abilities to the core business
structure.
POSCO announced that this year`s sales goals are 67.2
trillion KRW consolidated, and 36.3 trillion KRW
non-consolidated.