Doosan third-quarter operating profit nearly doubles on year as sales rise

Doosan said Monday its third-quarter operating profit nearly doubled from a year earlier to 459 billion won ($338 million), helped by higher sales across the conglomerate as revenue rose 22.2 percent to 5.43 trillion won ($4 billion).

Net income for the quarter was 103 billion won ($75.9 million), and the operating result was down 5.9 percent from the previous quarter, when the company posted 488 billion won in operating profit on 5.59 trillion won of revenue. Pre-tax profit from continuing operations fell 30 percent on year to 116 billion won and was down 85.7 percent from the second quarter.

For the first nine months of the year, Doosan's revenue totaled 16 trillion won ($11.8 billion), up 14.1 percent from 14.1 trillion won a year earlier, and operating profit reached 1.29 trillion won ($950 million), up 64.5 percent from 784 billion won. Cumulative pre-tax profit rose 63.1 percent to 1.08 trillion won ($799 million).

The group's construction-equipment arm, Doosan Bobcat, reported third-quarter revenue of 2.46 trillion won ($1.81 billion) and operating profit of 167 billion won ($123 million), up 16.5 percent and 25.3 percent respectively from a year earlier, for an operating margin of 6.9 percent, 0.5 percentage point better than a year earlier. Doosan Bobcat said the growth came from shipments deferred from earlier periods and stronger demand from rental companies, with small equipment sales up 15 percent, industrial vehicles 8 percent and portable power 5 percent, and North America up 15 percent, Asia, Latin America and Oceania 14 percent and Europe, the Middle East and Africa 3 percent, all measured in dollars. Through the first nine months, its cumulative operating profit reached $455 million, equal to 94 percent of its full-year operating profit for last year.

Kim Jong-du, president of the nuclear business group at Doosan Enerbility, said the deal was "an important opportunity for SMRs to move from the technical verification stage to the actual manufacturing stage."

"Based on the nuclear manufacturing experience accumulated so far, Doosan will support NuScale's commercial project," Kim said.