Seoul: Major South Korean companies, excluding chip giant SK hynix Inc., experienced a 1.7 percent decline in operating profit in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year, amid ongoing economic uncertainties, industry data revealed.

According to Yonhap News Agency, data from corporate tracker CEO Score showed that out of the top 500 South Korean companies by sales, 342 reported a combined 1,655.3 trillion won in sales during the January-June period, marking a 5.5 percent increase from the previous year. Their total operating profit rose 5.9 percent year-on-year to 118.5 trillion won. However, excluding SK hynix, their combined operating income fell by 1.7 percent from a year earlier.

SK hynix achieved the largest operating profit of 16.7 trillion won during this period, nearly doubling from 8.4 trillion won a year ago, fueled by increasing demand for high bandwidth memory (HBM) amid a surge in artificial intelligence (AI) computing. Samsung Electronics followed with an operating profit of 11.4 trillion won for the first half, a decrease of 33.4 percent from the previous year. Hyundai Motor Co. recorded 7.2 trillion won in operating profit, while Korea Electric Power Corp. and Kia Corp. reported 5.9 trillion won and 5.8 trillion won, respectively.

Conversely, Samsung SDI Co., a battery manufacturer, reported an operating loss of 831.9 billion won. Additionally, SK Energy Co. and Lotte Chemical Corp. faced operating deficits of 591.6 billion won and 377.1 billion won, respectively.