Leaders Index, analysis of 195 of the 500 largest companies
Inventories, up 36% from last year
Cargo vehicles transport containers at the storage yard at Sinsondae Pier at Busan Port.[연합뉴스]
At the end of the third quarter of this year, the inventory assets of large domestic companies increased by 36% from the end of last year amid the global economic downturn.
Leaders Index, a business analysis research organization, announced on the 22nd that it had analyzed the changes to inventory assets of 195 of the top 500 companies by sales.
At the end of the third quarter, the company’s inventory assets stood at 165,443.2 billion won. This is an increase of 36.2% (43.951 trillion won) compared to 121.49 trillion won at the end of last year. It is known that the amount of inventory in the third quarter was the largest ever since 2010.
Inventories of goods increased 27.2% from 19,914.7 billion won to 25,333.4 billion won, and inventories and semi-finished products increased 37.9% from 101,577.5 billion to 140,109.8 billion won.
A product is a finished product produced by a company, and a semi-finished product is an intermediate product that needs further processing. Leaders Index explained that the higher growth rate of inventories of products and semi-finished products than goods proves that exports are falling.
By industry, inventories in the IT and electrical/electronic industries increased the most. The inventories of 19 companies in the IT and electrical and electronics industries increased by 18.575 trillion won (44.7%) from 40.3613 trillion won at the end of last year to 58.4188 trillion won at the end of the third quarter of this year. The inventory of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix at the end of the third quarter of this year was 36.7204 trillion won and 3.42444 trillion won, respectively, up 42.6% and 174.7% from the end of last year.
The list of 25 petrochemical companies increased 9.2797 trillion won (45.4%) from 20.433 trillion won at the end of last year to 29.7127 trillion won at the end of the third quarter. LG Chem’s inventory assets stood at 7,593.8 billion won and SK Innovation’s at 6,574 billion won.
The list of 26 companies in the auto industry increased by 4.2727 trillion won (23.5%) from 18.1534 trillion won to 22.4261 trillion won. Among them, Hyundai Motor’s inventory increased by 24.4% from 6.7579 trillion won to 8.4069 trillion won. Kia Motors sales increased 15.2% from 5.668 trillion won to 5.8387 trillion won.
In addition, it was investigated that the rate of increase in the inventory assets of the three tire companies, including Hankook Tire Technology (45.3%), Nexen Tire (44.5%), and Kumho Tire (41.4%), was also high. The place with the highest inventory growth rate during the same period was Posco Energy (287.5%).
Reporter Lee Byung-hee leoybh@edaily.co.kr
