POSCO Holdings Inc. (PKX) Q2 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Hello, everyone. We'd like to begin the Pascal Holdings Earnings Call presentation. Thank you all for coming. Today, we will have a presentation from Pascal Holdings first, and then we will have a Q&A session with all those in attendance. For those who want to ask a question, please press star one. So let us now begin the earnings call for 2025 second quarter. Hello, everyone. I head up finance and IR at POS Goldings. My name is Kim Sung Joon. As you have already seen, I would like to first begin by thanking all of you for taking time out of your busy schedule to attend this earnings conference call. As you know, the past second quarter was marred by the intensifying global tariff war that began early this year. It was a time that saw incremental uncertainties, more so than ever before. Regardless of the hardship and challenges, Posco Holdings did its best to generate sustained growth. As a result, our consolidated revenue hit $17.6 trillion, operating price was $610 billion. By key business area, we observed noticeable improvement in steel. In both local and overseas steel businesses, quarter-on-quarter sales volume grew to push up revenues. With lower prices of iron ore and coking coal, mill margin improved, helping to grow our OPs. Most notable is POSCO's second quarter OP margin rate of 5.7%. Taking the fourth quarter of 2024 as the low point, we've been recording growth for two consecutive quarters. Moderate improvements in the domestic market is cited as the reason for no margin growth, but I believe there's more. We have added efficiency to our facilities to improve cost structure. Also, energy and raw materials ratios have been cut. We've introduced AI, so this is the outcome of multiple efforts that have come together. And still, despite the equivocations in...