Top 500 firms log half of sales overseas

SEOUL, May 2 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's top 500 companies generated almost half their sales in foreign markets in 2017, data showed Wednesday, pointing to their growing focus on overseas business. The overseas units of 162 firms out of the top 500 corporations posted 761 trillion won (US$711 billion) in combined overseas sales last year, up 11.7 percent from the previous year, according to the data from corporate tracker CEO Score. The amount accounted for 49.1 percent of their total top line last year, up from 48.4 percent the previous year and 48.2 percent in 2015. The figure covered only the 162 companies, which disclosed sales of their overseas units, and didn't include exports by their domestic units. The IT, electric and electronics sectors posted the highest ratio of 83.4 percent, followed by general trading companies with 71.3 percent and auto parts makers with 60.9 percent. By company, SK Trading International, a spinoff from SK Energy, recorded the biggest ratio of 96.6 percent, trailed by Samsung Display and SK hynix with 96 percent. The comparable figure was 86.8 percent for Samsung Electronics, the top cap in South Korea and the crown jewel of Samsung Group, the biggest family-controlled conglomerate in the country. Meanwhile, 43 out of the 62 firms that announced their sales in China said their shipments in the world's second-largest economy fell last year from a year ago. The drop was attributed to a bitter diplomatic row between South Korea and China over the deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system, which Beijing saw as a security threat. (END)