Facebook's operating profit surges sixfold in S.Korea; tops $10 mn

Last year's South Korea-based earnings for some global IT firms were disclosed publicly for the first time only this year, following a revision to the Act on External Audit of Stock Companies in 2017. Facebook was among the externally audited firms; reporting revenue of 44.2 billion won ($39.3 million) for its operations in Korea last year, up by 10.2% from the year-earlier period.

Facebook also saw its operating profit in Korea surge over sixfold from 1.8 billion won to 11.7 billion won during the same period, driven by personalized advertising from Facebook and Instagram. It was the first time for the social networking platform to reveal its earnings in Korea, according to the IT industry on Apr. 12.

Facebook's global sales also fared well, jumping 30% in the fourth quarter of last year compared to the year-earlier period.

Last year, over-the-top (OTT) service Netflix posted revenue of 415.5 billion won and an operating profit of 8.8 billion won in Korea. The company's revenue doubled while its operating profit almost quadrupled from the previous year. The company plans to invest up to 550 billion won to produce original content in Korea in 2021.

Adobe’s Korea branch, Adobe Systems Korea Ltd., posted 27.7 billion won in revenue last year, up by 11.6% from the previous year. The company's operating profit from last year surged 100% to 1.2 billion won from the year-earlier period, thanks to the high demand for video editing and Adobe-related products, according to an IT industry official.

SAP Korea also saw its revenue increase by 2.9% from the previous year at 418.3 billion won. The firm’s operating profit soared by 68.8% from 24.7 billion won to 41.7 billion won over the same period. Intel Korea’s sales rose by 7.3% in 2020 from the year-earlier period to reach 69.9 billion won with an operating profit of 20 billion won, up by 11.7%.

But not all global IT firms posted positive earnings from their Korea-based operations.

Last year, IBM Korea’s sales slid to 707.1 billion won, from 798.1 billion won in 2019. Dassault Systemes Korea Corp. saw its revenue drop to 167.5 billion won from 185.8 billion won during the same period, while SoftBank Korea posted 27.5 billion won in sales, down by 7.4% compared to the previous year.

Write to Joo-wan Kim at kjwan@hankyung.com
Danbee Lee edited this article.