POSCO Holdings Inc. (PKX) Q4 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us at the Postco Holdings earnings call. We will have a presentation from Postco Holdings followed by a Q&A session with the participants. If you have any questions, please press the start key and then number one on your phone. We will now begin the Postco Holdings 2024 earnings call. Greetings, everyone. I'm the Head of Finance and IR Division at POS Goldings. My name is Kim Sung-Joon. I'd like to begin by expressing my profound gratitude to the investors who offer unwavering attention and support to our business. Thank you. In 2024, various internal and external challenges impacted our business, resulting in consolidated account revenue of $72.7 trillion and operating profit of $2.2 trillion, both of which declined against the previous year. In steel, China's oversupply and its construction industry in a recession pushed the excess volume to exports, causing steel price in Asia to remain suppressed. We also feel limited in our ability to improve mill margin. In energy materials, given the slow EV market growth rate, essential minerals prices have tumbled. This led to inventory value impairment that have adversely impacted our earnings performance. Especially notable last year has been the successful completion of Q4, in Q4, of various EV battery materials plants, including POSCO Argentina, PPLS, and POSCO Lithium Solution. However, high initial operation costs during the ramp-up stage of new plants, on top of inevitably low plant operation rate during product certification, have led to larger shortfalls. Despite the steel business cycle headwinds in the region, based on our value-add steel products, Posco Group has been able to maintain relatively stable profits. In addition, we are making steady progress on our core strategies...