Top 4 business groups take up 20% of Korea's corporate sales

Korea's top four conglomerates account for nearly 20 percent of the country's overall corporate sales, a corporate tracker said Tuesday, pointing to their big clout in Asia's fourth-largest economy.

Combined sales by the business groups — Samsung, SK, Hyundai Motor and LG — averaged 746 trillion won ($571 billion) between 2011 and 2022, or 19.9 percent of total corporate sales at 3,745.9 trillion won, according to the Korea CXO Institute.

Leading conglomerate Samsung took up 8.2 percent of the total, followed by Hyundai Motor with 4.5 percent, SK with 4.1 percent and LG with 3.1 percent.

The four groups' combined net income averaged 47 trillion won over the 10-year period, accounting for 40.5 percent of the total corporate bottom line at 116.2 trillion won.

The average net income of Samsung units stood at 24 trillion won over the cited period, or 21 percent of the aggregate corporate net profit and more than the remaining three groups' earnings combined.

The four conglomerates' average operating income came to 53.7 trillion won during the period, or 30.4 percent of the total tally for all firms at 177 trillion won.

Samsung accounted for the highest proportion of the total at 15.3 percent, followed by SK with 6.5 percent, Hyundai Motor with 6 percent and LG with 2.5 percent, according to the institute.

Yonhap