This photo taken on May 29, 2020, shows vehicles awaiting shipment at the port of Hyundai Motor’s main Ulsan plant, 414 kilometers southeast of Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — A global shortage of chips used in autos is expected to have a limited impact on third-quarter earnings of South Korea’s top two carmakers Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp., a market tracker said Thursday.
The market consensus for Hyundai’s operating profit amounts to 1.78 trillion won (US$1.51 billion) for the July-September period, according to an analysis by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap.
Yonhap Infomax has analyzed earnings forecasts for the leading automakers, which 17 local securities companies have presented in the past two months.
The estimate is slightly lower than the average forecast of about 1.8 trillion won, which has been made by 20 brokerage houses in the last three months.
According to Yonhap Infomax, 19 brokerage houses have forecast Kia’s operating profit to reach 1.37 trillion won for the third quarter, also a tad lower than the previous estimate.
The slight fall in the outlooks for third-quarter operating income of Hyundai and Kia comes amid the shutdown of Unisem, a leading semiconductor equipment manufacturer of Malaysia, due to concerns over the spread of the new coronavirus.
The ensuing worldwide shortage of chips has caused Hyundai and Kia, the flagships of South Korean automaking giant Hyundai Motor Group, to suffer 70,000 units and 60,000 units, respectively, in lost output in the first half of the year alone.
(Yonhap)
