Nineteen out of South Korea's top 500 companies have remained in the black since 2000, with 11 of them reporting double-digit operating margins, a corporate tracker said Wednesday.
The 19 companies registered quarterly operating income for 74 straight quarters from the start of this century till the second quarter of this year, CEO Score said in a report based on their filings with the financial watchdog.
Of them, leading cigarette maker KT&G Corp., top mobile carrier SK Telecom Co, No. 1 steelmaker POSCO and eight others posted double-digit ratios of operating profit to revenue.
KT&G chalked up the highest operating margin of 35.2 percent, followed by SK Telecom with 20.4 percent, apparel maker Handsome with 16.1 percent and POSCO with 14.7 percent.
Three subsidiaries of Hyundai Motor Group -- Hyundai Motor Co., top auto parts maker Hyundai Mobis Co. and Hyundai Steel Co. -- ranked among the 19 most profitable companies.
Hyundai Motor Group was trailed by No. 1 family-controlled conglomerate Samsung Group and third-largest SK Group with two units.
No companies in the IT, electric and electronics, shipbuilding, machinery, construction, trading and transportation sectors have operating income for 70 or more consecutive quarters.
Samsung Electronics Co., South Korea's top cap and largest firm by revenue, has remained in the black for 38 quarters on end, the longest among players in the IT and electronics industry. (Yonhap)