Hyundai Rotem posted the largest first-quarter sales and operating profit on record, driven by growth in the defense and rail institutional sectors. The total order backlog came to nearly 30 trillion won.
Hyundai Rotem said on the 24th that, on a consolidation basis, first-quarter sales and operating profit were 1.4575 trillion won and 224.2 billion won. Both were up 23.9% and 10.5%, respectively, from a year earlier and marked the largest first-quarter results on record. Net profit was 202.7 billion won, up 29.0% from the same period a year earlier.
A Hyundai Rotem official said, "Sales increased in both the defense and rail institutional sectors as production grew for export and domestic volumes."
By business, defense sales were 804 billion won, up 22.2% from a year earlier. Operating profit in this institutional sector rose 12.8% to 218.8 billion won. However, the operating margin inched down to 27.2% in the first quarter from 29.5% a year earlier.
Rail sales totaled 543.2 billion won, up 35.0% from the same period a year earlier. However, operating profit plunged 40.8% to 2.9 billion won. The operating margin also fell to 0.5% from 1.2%.
Hyundai Rotem's order backlog at the end of the first quarter was 29.8181 trillion won, up 44.6 billion won from the end of the previous year. The rail institutional sector accounted for 18.9365 trillion won, and the defense institutional sector for 10.1021 trillion won.
In rail, the company booked orders at home and abroad, including the Sinansan Line double-track railway (235.3 billion won) and the Edmonton light rail in Canada (327.6 billion won). A Hyundai Rotem official said, "In the defense institutional sector, we plan to achieve new growth momentum through new orders in our core market of Europe and in emerging markets in Latin America and the Middle East."