Socar, 9.7 Billion KRW Loss Turnaround Last Year... "Expecting Turnaround in Second Half of This Year"

Socar announced on the 20th that its consolidated revenue last year was 398.5 billion KRW, a 0.2% increase compared to the previous year. Operating loss turned to a deficit of 9.7 billion KRW.

In the fourth quarter of last year, car-sharing segment revenue increased by 22.2% year-on-year to 89.1 billion KRW. The scale of Socar Plan, a monthly rental product, reached 4,670 vehicles in Q4, 3.7 times higher than 1,260 vehicles a year earlier. Due to strong sales of Socar Plan, the short-term utilization rate rose by 1.6 percentage points from 32.7% in Q4 2022 to 34.3% in the same period last year, and revenue per vehicle increased by 6.9%.

Platform segment transaction amount in Q4 was 7.3 billion KRW, growing 102.6% year-on-year. Monthly unique visitors (MUV) also rose 75.5%, from 890,000 in Q4 2022 to 1.56 million in the same period last year.

Used car sales revenue dropped sharply by 99.7% from 42.2 billion KRW in Q4 2022 to 100 million KRW. Due to this, total Q4 revenue decreased by 20.8% to 96.2 billion KRW, but excluding the used car sales segment, other business segments grew by 21.2%.

Operating profit recorded a loss of 2.8 billion KRW. One-time expenses such as increased marketing costs for the rollout of Socar 2.0 and donations from the largest shareholder to the employee stock ownership association were reflected in the operating profit.

Socar plans to continue implementing the Socar 2.0 strategy this year through four strategic initiatives: ▲expanding car-sharing demand ▲expanding Socar Plan ▲diversifying platform services ▲technology-based innovation.

Starting from Q2 this year with Naver, users will be able to book short-term car-sharing directly within various platforms and travel platforms (OTA) without accessing the Socar app. Socar expects to provide more customers with usage opportunities and secure up to an additional 3 million hours of annual car-sharing usage. Additionally, 'Socar Air,' which offers car-sharing and chauffeur-included vehicles for airport transfers used by over 20 million domestic and foreign travelers annually, will be launched in the first half of the year. The 'Foreigners Reservation' service, providing car-sharing to 2.26 million foreign residents in Korea, is also scheduled to be introduced in the first half.

This year, Socar plans to expand the operation of Socar Plan vehicles up to 10,000 units and flexibly convert more than half of these vehicles to short-term car-sharing during peak seasons to maximize operational efficiency and profitability. Through this, the short-term car-sharing utilization rate is expected to improve by more than 2 percentage points annually, maximizing revenue and profit.

Jae-wook Park, CEO of Socar, said, "Investments to implement the Socar 2.0 strategy that maximizes vehicle and user lifetime value (LTV) in the first half of this year will translate into financial performance in the second half. Starting from Q3, results will turn around significantly, marking the first year of high growth and a stable profit structure."