Listed companies of South Korea’s 10 largest conglomerates have been having their best-ever year with their combined earnings nearly doubling from a year ago period as of the end of September much thanks to stellar performance by the country’s top chipmakers.

According to data released by Chaebul.com that tracks top business groups on Monday, the combined operating profit of chaebol companies amounted to 62.5 trillion won ($57 billion) by the third quarter, compared with 32 trillion won a year ago. They are expected to rake in near 80 trillion won by the end of the year, near doubling last year’s 44.5 trillion won.

Their combined sales came to 592.5 trillion won, up 12.8 percent over the cited period.

Listed affiliates of Samsung Group contributed the most by earning 27.5 trillion won during the January-September period, up 171.1 percent from a year earlier. SK Group saw the income of its listed units surge by 212.7 percent to 13.5 trillion won during the same period to come in second.

Their performance largely owed to their chipmakng business that enjoyed unprecedented boom this year due to tight supply and sizzling demand for memory chips to power smart devices and vehicles.

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix made up 52.2 percent of the earnings of listed members of top 10 conglomerates.

Samsung Electronics’ operating profit jumped 177.8 percent on year to 23.6 trillion won from January to September this year, and SK Hynix’s soared 494.3 percent to 9 trillion won.

LG Group came third with earnings of 6.2 trillion won, up 98.3 percent, while Hyundai Motor Group came fourth with 5.5 trillion won, down 22.7 percent. They were followed by Lotte with 2.7 trillion won, Posco 2.5 trillion won, Hyundai Heavy Industries 1.7 trillion won, Hanwha 1.5 trillion won and GS 985 billion won.

By Yoon Jin-ho

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]