Hyundai Steel Co., South Korea's No. 2 steelmaker, said Wednesday its second-quarter earnings tumbled more than 48 percent on-year on sluggish sales.
Consolidated net profit came to 293.5 billion won (US$229.3 million) in the April-June period, down 48.2 percent from a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Sales dropped 3.3 percent on-year to 7.13 trillion won, and operating profit also plunged 43.4 percent to 465.1 billion won.
Yet Hyundai Steel's second-quarter bottom line beat a median estimate of 246.6 billion won in a survey of analysts by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data arm of Yonhap News Agency.
Compared with three months earlier, sales climbed 11.7 percent and its net income and operating profit soared 34.8 percent and 39.3 percent, respectively.
Hyundai Steel said it fared better in the second quarter than three months earlier thanks to increased sales of steel sheets used for cars and a seasonal rise in demand for steel rods.
The company said it will step up efforts to sell more products to carmakers and shipbuilders in the second half of the year in the face of a slowdown in South Korea's construction industry.
Hyundai Steel has also been seeking to boost production of low-carbon and eco-friendly steel products in an effort to keep in step with the growing global trend of carbon neutrality.
The company has announced a plan to produce 4 million tons of low-carbon steel plates per year by 2025, which contain carbon 20 percent lower than existing ones.
Shares in Hyundai Steel closed 4.5 percent down at 32,900 won ($25.80) on the Seoul bourse Wednesday, underperforming the benchmark KOSPI's 1.67 percent decline.
Source: Yonhap News Agency