Top 100 Companies' Q1 Overseas Sales Decrease by 10.4% Compared to Previous Quarter

Automobiles down 14.3%, Electrical and Electronics down 9.0%
Concerns over more than 10% decline in Q2 this year as well

Federation of Korean Industries

[Asia Economy Reporter Dongwoo Lee] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, overseas sales of Korea's top 100 companies in the first quarter of this year decreased by 10.4% compared to the fourth quarter of last year.

The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) announced on the 9th that an analysis of consolidated sales disclosure data for the top 100 companies by revenue last year showed that overseas sales decreased in all industries except finance and insurance.

The automobile industry, with about 70% of production overseas, saw a 14.3% decrease, and the electrical and electronics industry, with over 90% of mobile phone and TV production overseas, experienced a 9.0% decline.

Among the top 20 companies that disclose overseas sales by region, sales in China and Asia, the regions first affected by COVID-19 from January, decreased by 11.8%. This was followed by a 13.0% decrease in Europe and a 5.4% decrease in the Americas.

The top five companies among the top 100 that separately disclose sales in China?Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor, LG Electronics, SK Hynix, and Hyundai Mobis?saw their first-quarter sales in China drop by 24.6% compared to the previous quarter.

Among them, SK Hynix, which focuses on semiconductors as a single product, saw a 7.9% increase in sales in China, while Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor's Chinese joint venture (Beijing Hyundai) each experienced decreases of 14.9% and 70%, respectively.

The FKI expects overseas sales of the top 100 companies in the second quarter to decrease by more than 10% compared to the first quarter.

Kim Bong-man, head of the FKI's International Cooperation Office, explained, "Exports in April and May decreased by more than 20% year-on-year for two consecutive months, and the manufacturing recovery in the U.S. and Europe, excluding China, is slow," adding, "A specialized corporate performance monitoring agency projected that the sales of the top 10 companies in the second quarter will decrease by 9.3% compared to the first quarter."

The FKI urged the government to make efforts to promptly expand the special quarantine procedures of the 'fast track' for Korean businesspeople visiting China, which has been implemented since May, to major trading partner countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, and the United States, as improving overseas business conditions for companies remains difficult.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.