Hyundai Motor and Kia Surpass Samsung Electronics... Corporate Donations Increase by 25%

CEO Score, Performance and Donations of Korea's Top 500 Companies Survey
Hyundai Motor and Kia, 209.9 Billion Won This Year... Samsung Electronics at 179.6 Billion Won

Hyundai Motor and Kia, which are expected to achieve record-breaking performance, have been found to have donated more than Samsung Electronics for the first time.

CEO Score, a corporate data research institute, investigated the donation details of 264 out of the top 500 companies in Korea and announced the results on the 22nd. The cumulative donations from the first to the third quarter of this year amounted to 1.4186 trillion KRW, a 25.1% increase compared to the same period last year (1.1342 trillion KRW). During the same period, the cumulative operating profit of these companies was 93.3716 trillion KRW, a 31.3% decrease compared to the same period last year. Despite the decrease in profits, donations increased.

Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun is delivering a New Year's message about the management strategy and direction for the new year at the New Year's meeting held on January 3rd at Hyundai-Kia Namyang Research Center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province.
Photo by Hyunmin Kim, Hwaseong kimhyun81@

By company, Hyundai Motor and Kia donated the most, with 209.9 billion KRW. Hyundai Motor's donations increased by 179.9% to 136.2 billion KRW compared to 48.7 billion KRW in the same period last year. Kia also donated 73.6 billion KRW during the same period, a 365.9% increase from 15.8 billion KRW in the previous year. Hyundai Motor and Kia's donations exceeded Samsung Electronics' 179.6 billion KRW. Hyundai Motor's cumulative operating profit for the third quarter was 11.6524 trillion KRW, an 80.4% increase compared to the same period last year. Kia also posted an operating profit of 9.1421 trillion KRW, up 98.4%.

Hana Bank increased its donations by 53.6 billion KRW compared to the same period last year, and companies such as HMM, Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), Ssangyong C&E, SK Energy, LG Household & Health Care, Korean Air, and KT also expanded their donation support.

The company that reduced its donations the most was Kyobo Life Insurance. Kyobo Life Insurance's cumulative donations from the first to the third quarter were 1.6 billion KRW, a 96.5% decrease compared to 45.5 billion KRW in the same period last year. Life insurance companies, including Kyobo Life Insurance, annually contribute a portion of the previous year's taxable profits (0.5% for listed companies and 0.25% for unlisted companies) to the Life Insurance Social Contribution Committee as social contribution funds. The sharp decline in taxable profits is interpreted as the reason for the significant reduction in donations. Samsung Electronics (-43.3 billion KRW, down 19.4%) and SK Hynix (-15.7 billion KRW, down 27.3%), whose performance declined due to the semiconductor downturn, also reduced their donation support.

On an individual company basis, Samsung Electronics ranked first. Hyundai Motor (136.2 billion KRW), Korea Electric Power Corporation (118.5 billion KRW), Hana Bank (74.5 billion KRW), Kia (73.6 billion KRW), LG Household & Health Care (60.1 billion KRW), SK Hynix (41.6 billion KRW), POSCO (37.8 billion KRW), HMM (26.3 billion KRW), and Woori Bank (23.8 billion KRW) followed. CEO Score explained, "The reason KEPCO is recorded as having donated over 100 billion KRW despite posting a large deficit is that most of the donations were used as contributions to Korea Energy University."

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