LG CNS earns $2.3 billion in year's first 3 quarters

South Korea's information and communications technology (ICT) corporation LG CNS, which seeks an initial public offering (IPO), has set a company record with over 3 trillion won ($2.3 billion) in sales in this year's first three quarters thanks to higher order volume from surging corporate demand for digital transformation.

The company on Monday reported record sales in the third quarter of 1.1 trillion won, up 14% year on year, and operating profit of 95.3 billion won, up 6%. The three-quarter performance was also the best in its history with sales of 3.2 trillion won and operating profit of 247.6 billion won. 

The company said this was also its best growth over three consecutive quarters.

The stellar performance received a major boost from major companies seeking app modernization, or the redevelopment of traditionally developed apps through optimization for the cloud environment. Many orders were for cloud and smart factory operations.

Becoming the first Korean company to sign a digital transformation deal with Google Cloud of the US in September, LG CNS will expand its app modernization operations by adding artificial intelligence technology from the American platform. 

LG CNS also saw third-quarter cloud sales to companies other than LG Group affiliates surge around 50% from the same quarter last year.

Thus the company's reliance on LG affiliates has greatly fallen. Its volume of orders for a virtual factory, or a system at the highest stage of a smart factory that uses, is reported to have jumped.

Despite uncertainty in the global economic climate, LG CNS's surprising winning is expected to continue. "The company is known to be securing a new business sector by combining and analyzing all kinds of data," an industry source said.

Write to Ji-Eun Jeong at jeong@hankyung.com