KPS Achieves Operating Profit Turnaround After 10 Quarters... Sales Increase 950% YoY

KPS has officially entered a turnaround phase starting from the second quarter of this year. It posted operating profit for the first time in 10 quarters since Q4 2020, and its sales surged approximately 950% compared to the same period last year.

According to the Financial Supervisory Service's electronic disclosure system, KPS recorded consolidated sales and operating profit of 26.3 billion KRW and 1.376 billion KRW respectively in Q2 this year, marking a 952% increase and a return to profitability compared to the same period last year. Sales also increased by more than 150% compared to Q1 of this year.

The cumulative consolidated sales for the first half of the year, including Q1, stood at 36.8 billion KRW, with an operating loss of 421 million KRW. Sales grew about tenfold compared to 3.7 billion KRW recorded in the first half of the previous year, and operating losses were significantly reduced from around 3.2 billion KRW.

The main reason for the steep improvement in performance is the strong results of Segiritec, which was fully incorporated as a subsidiary in March. This company produces cobalt and nickel, the main raw materials for batteries, and supplies them to major domestic and international battery manufacturers.

Segiritec's Q2 sales and operating profit were 24.2 billion KRW and 3.2 billion KRW respectively, showing increases of 15% and 146% compared to the same period last year. Compared to the previous quarter, sales rose by 13% and operating profit by 255%.

Segiritec's growth trajectory is expected to accelerate further. Currently, it owns two rotary furnaces for smelting capable of recycling about 75,000 tons of waste batteries annually in Yeongcheon, Gyeongbuk, and plans to secure a capacity of over 100,000 tons by early next year through expansion or additional facilities.

In particular, since it has also entered the recycling of lithium batteries for electric vehicles (NCM·LFP), the potential for a 'quantum jump' in the future has increased. Since last month, Segiritec has signed a technology transfer and commercialization agreement with a government-funded research institute that holds numerous original technologies for waste battery recycling and reuse. It will sequentially receive intellectual property rights (patent technology name: multi-stage solvent extraction monitoring system) and know-how (design and operation of rare metal separation processes).

Since its establishment in 2010, Segiritec has maintained annual sales in the range of 80 to 90 billion KRW, and last year recorded sales of 86.5 billion KRW, operating profit of 5.8 billion KRW, and net profit of 4.275 billion KRW respectively.

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