Hanjin to up investment after losing Coupang business

Cho Hyun-min, president of Hanjin Transportation, speaks at a press conference Tuesday. [HANJIN TRANSPORTATION]

Hanjin Transportation will invest a total of 1.1 trillion won ($859 million) by end of 2025, and it will also open its own metaverse world on the Zepeto application.

Of the total investment, 800 billion won will be used to build a logistics hub in Daejeon, another in greater Seoul and various smaller fulfillment centers nationwide. Another 150 billion won will be used for IT and digitization.

The remaining 150 billion won will be used to establish overseas subsidiaries in countries such as Thailand and Indonesia. Hanjin Transportation has 12 overseas subsidiaries and plans to increase that to 19 by end of 2025.

With the investment, the company aims to log an annual revenue of 4.5 trillion won and operating profit of 200 billion won in 2025. It reported annual revenue of 2.5 trillion won last year, up 13 percent on year. Operating profit was 105.8 billion won, edging down 0.1 percent on year.

In 2021, the company announced its investment plan for 2025, but the total investment mentioned Tuesday increased by 460 billion won. Its revenue goal increased by 1 trillion won.

More money will be pumped in, but Hanjin Transportation says it can finance the investment.

It plans to issue 100 to 150 billion won of corporate bonds in the future and sell nine pieces of land not fully utilized.

The company has lost a big part of its delivery orders from Coupang since June 14, but says its on track to reach its revenue goal.

Hanjin Transportation delivered around 7.2 million parcels for Coupang every month, but is now only delivering some 4 million parcels as the e-commerce company increased the number of parcels it directly delivers.

"We newly signed deals to deliver for various homeshopping companies and Amorepacific, which are about 2.5 million parcels and make up for the decreased deliveries." said Noh Sam-sug, CEO of Hanjin Transportation, in discussing monthly figures.

Noh said Hanjin Transportation could acquire companies to reach its revenue target.

Hanjin Transportation also introduced Hanjin Logiverse Island, a virtual world created on Naver's Zepeto metaverse, on Tuesday.

Users can roam around and play games in a virtual world where the company's logistics center and parcel-sorting terminals are built virtually.

"When the metaverse started gaining attention, we were first worried that people won't need things to be physically delivered in the future," said Cho Hyun-min, president of Hanjin Transportation. "But we think the need for logistics will never disappear because people always purchase and consume things, but there will be a huge change in the next 10 years due to metaverse, and we plan to start projects in Zepeto and on the metaverse so we can continue to be the leading logistics company in the future."

The company plans to host various company meetings and memorandum of understanding-signing events on the application.

BY LEE TAE-HEE [lee.taehee2@joongang.co.kr]