South Korea’s mid-sized conglomerate Dayou Winia Group made significant improvement in earnings at its home appliance making unit Winia Dimchae and other key subsidiaries for fiscal 2019 as synergy from merger paid off.

Winia Dimchae, the country’s leading kimchi refrigerator maker, reversed to an operating profit of 22.6 billion won ($18.6 million) in 2019 from 1.2 billion won losses reported a year earlier. Its revenue totaled 745.2 billion won, up 33.7 percent on year.

The improvement owes to the company’s cost-saving efforts, which included combining research centers separately run by Winia Dimchae and Winia Daewoo as well as shedding their overlapping assets, the group said Wednesday.

Dayou Winia Group, acquired Winia Daewoo, formerly called Dongbu Daewoo Electronics, in early 2018 with an aim to groom it as Korea’s No.3 consumer electronics maker. Winia Daewoo earlier this month reported it swung to a net profit of 9.5 billion won in 2019.

The group’s other key subsidiaries also fared well.

Dayou Automotive Seat Technology Co.’s operating profit jumped to 32.6 billion won last year from the previous year’s 6.7 billion won. Its revenue gained 16.14 percent on year to 1.3 trillion won.

Dayou Plus Co., network equipment maker, recorded 39.5 billion won in operating profit for full 2019, up 8.7 percent on year. Annual revenue came in 5.3 percent higher at 530 billion won.

Car seats maker Dayou AP Co., however, reported a fall in earnings last year. Operating profit was 10 billion won, down 2.9 percent on year, and revenue shrank 18.8 percent to 157.5 billion won.

By Cho Jeehyun

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