Ssangyong Motor swings to first quarterly profit in six years

South Korea’s Ssangyong Motor Co. posted its first quarterly operating profit in six years, powered by brisk sales of the Torres SUV launched last year.

Its fourth-quarter operating profit came to 4.1 billion won ($3.3 million), versus the previous year’s shortfall of 23.3 billion won, the company said on Wednesday.

Sales jumped 58.7% on-year to 1 trillion won in the October-December quarter. It sold 33,502 units of cars during the period, up 50% on-year.

The quarterly results marked the first quarterly profit for Ssangyong since the fourth quarter of 2016.

Thanks to the buoyant fourth-quarter results, its whole-year sales were up 41.7% to 3.4 trillion won from the year prior.

Its operating loss for all of 2022 was reduced by 54.9% on-year to 117.5 billion won.

The mid-sized SUV Torres was launched in June of last year. It led Ssangyong’s turnaround, selling 11,909 units in the fourth quarter. The SUV made up the largest portion of the carmaker’s sales.

Exports also boosted Ssangyong’s revenue. Its exports doubled to 13,681 units in the last quarter of 2022 from the year prior.

The results come after South Korea’s KG Group completed the acquisition of the SUV maker in August of last year.

This year, Ssangyong will zoom in on Saudi Arabia and Vietnam to increase shipments.

Its assembly lines in Saudi Arabia will kick off first-stage production at the end of this year. It broke ground for the completely knocked down (CKD) plant in January of last year.  

The SUV-focused carmaker is aiming to ship CKD kits to Vietnam to produce a total of 300,000 units over the next five years.

Trading in Ssangyong shares has been suspended since December 2020.

Write to Han-Shin Park at phs@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.