Although the KONEX market narrowed its losses last year and showed some improvement, more than half of corporations still posted losses and have not escaped a phase of slowing growth.
According to the "KONEX market December fiscal-year-end corporations' 2025 fiscal year settlement of account results" released by the Korea Exchange (KRX) on the 2nd, last year's sales for the 89 corporations analyzed came to 2.0545 trillion won. That was up 4.0% from 2024.
However, the KONEX market as a whole was sluggish, posting an operating loss of 39.1 billion won and a net loss of 90.8 billion won. Still, the losses narrowed significantly from the previous year (operating loss 269.4 billion won, net loss 330.7 billion won).
In particular, the debt ratio improved to 175.5%, down 72.5 percentage points from a year earlier. That was because total liabilities decreased by 52.1 billion won (2.5%) over the same period to 2.0188 trillion won, while total equity increased by 315.4 billion won (37.8%) to 1.1506 trillion won.
Of the 89 corporations analyzed, 43 (48.3%) were profitable and 46 (51.7%) were loss-making. Thirty-seven loss-making corporations (41.6%) recorded losses in both 2024 and last year. Twenty-eight (31.5%) remained profitable for two consecutive years.
By industry, sales last year increased from 2024 across all sectors, including manufacturing and information technology (IT), but all sectors except IT posted operating losses and remained in the red. The number of corporations that continued to be profitable was highest in manufacturing (12), while the number that continued to post losses was highest in biotech (14).
Of the 107 KONEX-listed companies, 18 did not even make the analysis sample. Two listed companies did not submit business reports or extended their submission deadlines. Nine listed companies received a "non-unqualified" audit opinion, and two triggered grounds for delisting. The remaining five were excluded from the analysis due to changes in accounting standards.