SEOUL, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's corporate earnings hit record highs in the second quarter due to a colossal boom in the semiconductor sector, driven by expanding artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure investments, central bank data showed Wednesday.
Revenue for 26,509 audited companies, including 13,218 manufacturers and 13,291 non-manufacturers that exclude financial firms, shot up 26.7 percent in the April-June quarter from a year earlier after mounting 13.5 percent in the January-March quarter, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).
It marked the sharpest growth since the BOK began compiling the data in 2015, breaking the previous high of 24.9 percent set in the fourth quarter of 2021.
The historic surge was led by the manufacturing industry, where revenue growth nearly doubled to 39.6 percent in the second quarter from 21.1 percent in the first quarter.
Sales by non-manufacturers expanded 9.7 percent in the second quarter on a year-on-year basis, after swelling 3.7 percent in the previous quarter.
It was attributed to the transportation sector, of which revenue jumped 13.6 percent on strong demand for air cargo and rising ocean freight rates stemming from the ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
The construction sector's revenue growth turned positive in eight quarters thanks to higher construction orders for new semiconductor manufacturing plants.
Corporate profitability also reached uncharted territory. The ratio of operating profit to revenue for the audited companies soared to a record high of 16.9 percent in the second quarter from 5.1 percent a year earlier.
The operating profit margin for manufacturers leaped almost fivefold to a new high of 24.0 percent, but the non-manufacturing profit margin slightly slipped to 5.0 percent in the second quarter from 5.1 percent a year earlier as transport profitability dropped on the back of high oil prices and costlier detour shipping routes.
Financial soundness improved on average, with the overall corporate debt-to-equity ratio sliding to 84.5 percent in the second quarter from 87.0 percent in the first quarter.
A gap widened between large corporations and smaller businesses. While the debt ratio for large enterprises shrank from 83.8 percent in the first quarter to 79.8 percent in the second quarter, the ratio for small and medium-sized enterprises deteriorated from 103.0 percent to 112.1 percent. ■
