Solus Advanced Materials said on the 28th that it posted sales of 145.1 billion won and an operating loss of 21.2 billion won in the third quarter of this year. Compared with the same period last year, sales rose 7.8%, but the operating loss increased 13.4%.
While losses continued due to higher fixed costs and currency pressures, robust growth in high value-added copper foil products and the organic light-emitting diode (OLED) business led to higher sales.
In the battery foil institutional sector, sales fell from 55.0 billion won last year to 36.4 billion won this year due to inventory adjustments by key clients stemming from a prolonged slump in the electric vehicle market.
In the copper foil institutional sector, sales increased 55.4% from 49.3 billion won to 76.6 billion won, backed by expanded full-scale mass production of high-end products for artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators.
In the OLED institutional sector, sales rose 5.6% from 30.4 billion won to 32.1 billion won on increased supply of mobile products and expanded production for new original equipment manufacturer (OEM) orders.
Solus Advanced Materials expected to wrap up plans to expand the number of battery foil clients in the remaining second half to eight, double last year. It is in final contract talks with only one remaining Europe-based global battery company.