Hankook Tire's 3rd Quarter Profit Soars 33% On Forex Gains

Hankook Tire & Technology Co., the world's sixth-largest tiremaker by sales, said Monday its third-quarter net profit jumped 33 percent from a year earlier on foreign exchange gains, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

Photo Insert: 80 percent of Hankook's total revenue comes from abroad.

Net profit for the three months that ended in September rose to 188.96 billion won from 142.21 billion won in the year-ago period, the company said in a statement. "The won's weakness against the dollar helped boost the bottom line," a company spokesman said by phone.

A weak won drives up a company's dollar-denominated overseas earnings when converted into the local currency. The dollar rose to 1,184.90 won at the end of September compared to 1,173.50 won a year earlier, according to data from the Bank of Korea.

Hankook Tire earns over 80 percent of its total revenue abroad. It has eight plants -- two in South Korea, one in Hungary, one in the United States, three in China and one in Indonesia -- whose combined capacity reaches 102 million tires per year.

Operating profit fell 20 percent to 180.82 billion won in the third quarter from 224.75 billion won a year ago.

Reduced tire supplies to Hyundai Motor Co. and other carmakers drove down the quarterly operating profit as they suffered disrupted vehicle production due to global chip shortages. Sales declined 3 percent to 1.829 trillion won from 1.886 trillion won.

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