Hyundai has announced its financial and delivery figures for the first quarter of the year, revealing that profit have nearly tripled to its highest level in four years.
During Q1, the car manufacturer sold 1,000,281 vehicles around the globe, a 10.7 per cent rise from Q1 2020. Sales in markets outside of Korea rose by 9.5 per cent to 814,868 units while sales within Korea climbed by 16.6 per cent to 185,413 vehicles. Hyundai says the new Tucson along with their luxury brand Genesis’ G80, and GV70 all contributed to the jump in sales.
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Net profit soared by 187 per cent to 1.3 trillion won ($1.16 billion) during the quarter, up from the equivalent of $463 billion in the January-March period in 2020. The car manufacturer is expected to report net profit of 1.4 trillion won ($1.25 billion) for the second quarter which would be a 536 per cent jump from the same quarter last year.
Hyundai says it expects economic stimulus plans issued around the world to boost demand for new cars but did acknowledged that the Covid-19 pandemic, semiconductor shortages, and the fluctuating raw material costs will “amplify business uncertainty.”
While Hyundai largely avoided the impacts of the semiconductor shortage in the early months of the year, it is now starting to feel the impact and since the beginning of this month, has had to temporarily pause production three times at various factories.
“The condition of semiconductor parts is being a little more prolonged than we expected,” executive vice president at Hyundai Seo Gang-hyun said. “As the semiconductor procurement condition is rapidly changing, it’s difficult to predict production status after May. We expect that there will likely be similar production adjustment in May, similar or more than what we had in April.”
