[2020 National Audit] Sales Decline in 77 of Top 100 Companies in First Half... Impact of COVID-19

Democratic Party Rep. Yang Kyung-sook: "Even Large Corporations Face Sharp Sales Decline Due to COVID-19... Need to Discover Growth Engines"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Wondara] In the first half of this year, 77 out of Korea's top 100 companies experienced a decline in sales compared to the previous year. The total sales of the top 100 companies also plummeted to less than half of the previous year's level.

According to the 'Top 100 Companies Sales Data (excluding financial industry)' submitted by the Financial Supervisory Service to Yang Kyung-sook, a member of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, as of the first half of this year, 77 out of the top 100 companies saw a decrease in sales compared to the previous year.

The company with the largest decrease was Asiana Airlines, ranked 78th, which recorded sales of 2.1801 trillion KRW in the first half but saw a 37.15% decrease compared to the same period last year. During the same period, the total sales of the top 100 companies were 79.4 billion KRW, which is less than half compared to 171.6 billion KRW in 2018 and 172.2 billion KRW in 2019.

Yang Kyung-sook's office predicted, "If this trend continues, the total sales of the top 100 companies this year are expected to be around 1,600 trillion KRW, similar to the 2017 performance."

On the other hand, the company with the highest sales increase was Dow Technology, ranked 43rd, with 4.6751 trillion KRW, up 206.2% compared to the same period last year. Next were Dow Data, ranked 41st (4.8581 trillion KRW), and KG Chemical, ranked 86th (1.8174 trillion KRW), which increased by 185.3% and 173.3% respectively compared to the first half of last year.

Representative Yang said, "Due to the spread of COVID-19, sales in industries such as travel, aviation, accommodation, and food are expected to sharply decline, and even relatively strong large companies are showing rapid sales decreases. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the competitiveness of large companies and discover new growth engine industries."

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