LG Electronics ups Q2 earnings guidance on robust sales

LG Group’s headquarters in Yeouido, western Seoul (Newsis)

LG Electronics said Friday it expected its second-quarter earnings to climb more than 60 percent from a year earlier on robust sales of its main home appliance products and balanced qualitative growth of its business-to-business sector.

LG estimated that its operating profit for the April-June period came in at 1.19 trillion won ($863.2 million), up 61.2 percent from a year ago, according to the company’s earnings guidance.

The home appliance maker’s earnings guidance for the April-June period has far exceeded market expectations. The FnGuide, a local market intelligence firm, projected the company’s second-quarter operating profit to record 998.1 billion won.

Sales increased 8.5 percent on-year to 21.7 trillion won. The sales estimate was slightly higher than the consensus of 21.33 trillion won by local analysts, provided by the FnGuide.

Meanwhile, the data for net income was not available for Friday’s earnings guidance.

Both sales and operating profit were the highest ever in the second quarter, and operating profit exceeded 1 trillion won for the first time in the second quarter.

Looking at the performance in the first half of the year, sales exceeded 40 trillion won for three consecutive years and operating profit exceeded 2 trillion won for four straight years.

Compared to the first half of the previous year, sales increased by 5.9 percent and operating profit increased by 13 percent.

“Efforts to improve the business structure and change business methods to change to a future-oriented structure contributed greatly to good performance,” an LG Electronics official said.

During the seasonal peak, sales of air conditioners have significantly increased, contributing to the growth trend in the home appliances business.

Steady growth in B2B sectors, including electric vehicle components, subscriptions and heating, ventilation and air conditioning, voltage stabilizers, and appliance subscriptions businesses have played a significant role over the last three months.

According to LG, sales of the latest Whisen stand air conditioners equipped with AI in June increased by more than 80 percent on-year.

Its TV and web content service businesses also contributed to the second quarter, it added.

The number of users of LG Channel, the company's web content service, topped 50 million in 28 countries globally. LG is expanding its webOS content and services business beyond TV to include IT and in-vehicle infotainment.

LG Electronics said its efforts to diversify its business portfolio and become a future-oriented company contributed to its strong performance in the second quarter.

The company will announce details of its quarterly earnings later this month.

By Jie Ye-eun(yeeun@heraldcorp.com)