South Korea’s top 500 companies by sales see 42 new entrants in 2022

Kia Corp. headquarters in Seoul [Photo by Lee Chung-woo]

South Korea saw 42 companies replaced among the country’s top 500 revenue-generating companies in the past year.

While Samsung Electronics Co. and Hyundai Motor Co. held the top two spots, Kia Corp. jumped to third place and GS Caltex entered the top 10 list. CEO Score, a corporate management information provider on Wednesday, provided the list based on publicly disclosed 2022 revenue information.

The total revenue of the top 500 companies last year was 4,060.2 trillion won ($3.07 trillion), up 23.7 percent from a year earlier. However, their operating profit fell by 15.9 percent to 236 trillion won. The minimum revenue threshold to enter the top 500 companies was 1.31 trillion won, up 19.3 percent. Consequently, 141 companies with revenue over 1 trillion won were not included in the list.

There were 42 new entrants to the top 500 companies, including POSCO, SK on and Korea Racing Authority, versus 39 a year ago. Six companies - Korea Ocean Business Corp., Gyeonggi Housing & Urban Development Corp., Booyoung Housing, Seegene, MDM Plus and Shin Young - fell from the list as their revenue fell to below 1 trillion won.

Five companies, including Hanwha E&C and Lotte Food, were merged into other companies.

Among industries, the petroleum and chemical sector had the most companies on the list with 49, followed by automotive/auto parts/logistics sectors at 44 each. They were followed by construction and building materials at 37, IT and electronics at 35, food and beverage at 31 and insurance at 29.

By company, Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor maintained the top two spots with sales of 302.23 trillion won and 142.53 trillion won, respectively. Kia, with revenue of 86.56 trillion won, rose to third place from fifth. Due to Kia’s rapid revenue growth, the combined revenue of Hyundai Motor and Kia came to 229.09 trillion won last year, 75.8 percent of that of Samsung Electronics.

Kia was followed by LG Electronics Inc. with sales of 83.47 trillion won, Korea Electric Power Corp. at 71.26 trillion won and Hanwha Corp. at 62.28 trillion won.