[Concall] Kia "Car Semiconductor Supply, May Is the Bottleneck"

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Je-hoon] Joo Woo-jung, Vice President and Head of Finance at Kia, said on the 22nd regarding the shortage of automotive semiconductors, "May is expected to be the most difficult time, a kind of 'boritgogae' (lean season)."

Through the first-quarter earnings conference call held that afternoon, Joo stated, "Until this month, we were able to benefit from previously secured inventory effects, but these are almost depleted now, which will be the case in May."

Regarding vehicle production in the first quarter and this month, he said, "Overall production in the first quarter was about 99% of the business plan, but excluding the Chinese market where production was intentionally reduced for business normalization, it exceeds 100%."

Regarding future prospects, Joo said, "June seems to be a little better, and for the third quarter, we are cautiously optimistic that we might be able to recover some of the losses caused by production disruptions."

He also added, "Although there may be some production disruptions in May and June, we believe that strong demand elasticity and the effect of new models will allow sufficient recovery afterward," and stated, "While there may be short-term fluctuations due to the semiconductor shortage, from a long-term perspective, there should be no major problems."

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