Socar announced on the 13th that its consolidated sales for the second quarter of this year amounted to 91.4 billion KRW, an 18.6% increase compared to the same period last year.
Operating profit turned to a loss of 6.6 billion KRW in the second quarter from a profit of 1.6 billion KRW in the previous year. Socar explained that the operating loss was due to a 33.4% increase in indirect costs over the year, driven by demand creation in the car-sharing sector, investments in the platform segment, and expanded marketing.
According to Socar, the mid-to-long-term growth strategy Socar 2.0, which began in the second half of last year, has entered its main track, improving the gross profit margin (GPM) from 14.9% in the first quarter to 16.9% in the second quarter. The short-term car-sharing GPM rose by 10.5 percentage points from 17.1% in the second quarter of last year to 18.9% this year.
The GPM of Socar Plan, a rental product for more than one month that has been aggressively promoted by tripling the number of operating vehicles, improved by 52.9%, from minus (-)15.3% in the first quarter to -8.1% in the second quarter.
Socar explained that car-sharing demand is continuously expanding thanks to changes such as the increase in single-person households and the decrease in private car ownership, as well as the expansion of car-sharing service areas and vehicles, and improvements in service convenience such as the Bureum and one-way services.
The Bureum vehicle delivery service, which has more than twice the average usage time and travel distance, and the one-way service that allows changing the return location are driving this upward trend. The share of Bureum and one-way usage in the total short-term car-sharing services increased by 6.1 percentage points, from 14.4% in the second quarter of last year to 20.5% this year.
The platform business segment, including accommodation, shared electric bicycles Elecle, and the online parking platform Moduui Juchajang, saw transaction amounts increase by 27.2%, from 20 billion KRW to 25.5 billion KRW over the year.
Additionally, Socar explained that to expand vehicle LTV (lifetime value), it minimized used car sales, resulting in used car sales revenue of 1 billion KRW in the second quarter, a 94% decrease compared to 17.2 billion KRW in the same period last year.
Due to the decrease in used car sales revenue, total sales in the second quarter were 101.7 billion KRW, down 2.0% from 103.8 billion KRW in the same period last year.
Jaeuk Park, CEO of Socar, said, "Through the Socar 2.0 strategy implemented over the past year, we have proven the growth potential of the car-sharing market and Socar's ability to lead the market," adding, "We are confident in company-wide structural improvements that will enable stable profit generation starting from the third quarter."
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