As of the end of the third quarter of 2019, POSCO has made more than 1 trillion won in operating profit for nine consecutive quarters. POSCO announced in a conference call on October 24 that the comprehensive operating revenue in the third quarter was 15988.2 billion won, the operating profit was 1039.8 billion won and the net profit was 496.8 billion won. Although the operating profit of the current quarter is lower than that of the previous quarter, the overall performance remains unchanged, which is mainly due to the better performance of POSCO International's natural gas well business in Myanmar, as well as the energy income brought by the improvement of construction progress and the increase in electricity price of the POSCO e & C project.
In the third quarter, POSCO's non consolidated sales revenue was 7735.9 billion won, operating profit was 662.5 billion won, and net profit was 499 billion won. After some production lines were overhauled in the second quarter, POSCO production was normalized and sales increased, but the operating profit decreased by 8.5% due to the rise of raw material prices. However, the sales proportion of world top premium products increased by 0.3% to 29.9%, which effectively reduced the profit decline and finally achieved a profit margin of 8.6%.
POSCO is known for maintaining a stable financial structure. Despite the increase of corporate bonds and loans, the comprehensive debt ratio can still be maintained at 65.7%. As the global steel consumption in automobile, construction and other industries has declined a year ago, the steel industry will also slow down. According to the latest forecast of the World Steel Association (WSA), the global steel demand will grow steadily in 2019, which is mainly driven by China's real estate development policy, investment expansion, tax preference and other factors.
