POSCO Holdings Inc. (PKX) Q4 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Greetings. I head up the Finance and IR Division at Posco Holdings. My name is Kim Sung-Chun. This is Posco Holdings' 2025 full-year earnings release. I'd like to welcome the participants, investors, and analysts. Thank you. In 2025, we experienced global trade policy shifts and economic slowdown. It was a challenging environment. We put our effort into protecting our short-term profits. At the same time, as a business group, we built a foundation for future growth. 2025 consolidated revenues declined 5% year-on-year, recording 69.1 trillion won. Operating profit declined 16% to 1.8 trillion won. While POSCO's OP grew from 3.9% to 5%, we failed to meet our goals due to the accidents at POSCO EMC that led to construction halt, as well as the ramp-up costs that enter the books for the new lithium and precursor plants that were commissioned at the end of 2024. The fourth quarter profits were especially weak. The reason was communicated in last quarter's release. Kohang HR plant and other facilities have gone into major repair schedules, triggering production volume cuts. Also, large volume imports that flooded our market prior to the preliminary AD tariffs on HR products were still being consumed, causing a temporary drop in sales volume. There's more. The divestment of PZS's plant in China caused employee compensation to enter our books, too. This is in addition to the loss incurred by construction stop issued at POSCO EMC, so sizable one-time costs were accounted for all at once. In 2026, we will likely serve up some significant inflection points for POSCO Holdings. First, we have for some time studied various ways to go overseas in steel. This year, we'll see some specific actions. Last year, we identified strategic partners, signed MOUs with the U.S. and Indian JV p...