SEOUL, - Major banking holding firm Woori Financial Group Inc. said Thursday its third-quarter net profit slipped 1.6 percent from a year earlier due to a sharp drop in sales.
Net profit for the three months ended Sept. 31 came to 918.2 billion won (US$675.2 million), compared with 933.3 billion won posted during the same period last year, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Operating income for the July-September period was 1.22 trillion won, down 3.7 percent from a year ago. Revenue plunged 51.6 percent on-year to 9.88 trillion won.
The earnings exceeded market expectations. The average estimate of net profit by analysts stood at 835.4 billion won, according to a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of Yonhap News Agency.
The Q3 net marked a 37.6 percent spike from a 667.2 billion won net profit in the second quarter, according to Woori Financial.
The group attributed the on-quarter gain to an increase in interest income, noting interest income in the first three quarters of the year stood at 6.6 trillion won, compared with 6.34 trillion won recorded over the same period last year.
Accumulated net profit in the first nine months of the year came to 2.53 trillion won, down 9.3 percent from 2.72 trillion won a year earlier.
Source: Yonhap News Agency