Monday, July 29th, 2013
Given the companies' fourth-quarter 2012 operating profit had been down 2.0 percent from a year ago, the latest quarter's performance is welcome news for the companies. Their average operating profit ratio has also risen 8.4 percent this quarter from 7.3 percent from the same quarter in 2012.
But the problem is that most of the companies saw their operating profit shrink except a small number of high performers including Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Except these two, the quarterly operating profit of 43 companies was 9,703.6 billion won, down 8.2 percent from the same period last year. Their operating profit ratio has also declined to 5.36 percent from 5.81 percent.
