Songwon Industrial Group reported its financial results for FY 2019.

SONGWON’s overall consolidated sales revenues for FY 2019 amounting to 814,340 million KRW which marks a 3.2 percent increase compared to the consolidated sales for FY 2018 (788,738 million KRW).

After continuing to concentrate on its core business throughout the year, the result achieved in FY 2019 was SONGWON’s highest sales result since the company was founded.

In FY 2019, against the backdrop of ongoing geopolitical challenges and macro-economic uncertainty, SONGWON noted weak and volatile demand across the industry as well as fierce competition in certain markets.

Despite this challenging environment throughout the year, Division Industrial Chemicals recorded sustainable demand for its products across the regions (particularly MEA) even in Q4/2019, which is a traditionally slow quarter due to customers’ usual year-end destocking activities. Overall in FY 2019, SONGWON was successful in achieving an increase in profitability in Division Industrial Chemicals and recorded revenue growth of 4.7 percent.

The global slowdown in demand, especially in industries such as automotive and electronics, combined with the year-end destocking negatively affected the overall performance of SONGWON Industrial Group’s Division Performance Chemicals in 2019.

Furthermore, after the downturn in Korea’s construction industry in FY 2018, the industry continued to shrink this year leading to a drop in demand and an increase in fierce competition. This also had a detrimental effect on Division Performance Chemicals’ results for the year. However, SONGWON successfully offset the loss in PVC stabilizers business by directing its efforts towards capitalizing on solid sales opportunities outside of Korea.

In the course of the year, SONGWON further consolidated its competitive position by focusing on developing an even broader portfolio of high-quality, sustainable solutions. The organization also continued to grow and strengthen its global distributor network to facilitate and accelerate the penetration of key markets especially ASEAN – a region that holds promising opportunities.

SONGWON’s production facilities ran smoothly throughout 2019 at the level needed to meet customers’ demands as well as economic requirements. During FY 2019, raw materials remained at stable levels with only some exceptions. Once again this year, the company invested in further automation and plant optimization and the positive impact already recorded in 2019 will continue in the years to come.

Looking ahead, SONGWON expects the challenging environment, political uncertainty and market volatility to persist through FY 2020 which makes demand predictions difficult.

Despite this, the GDP is expected to see higher growth in 2020 and keeping with this, SONGWON anticipates that demand for its Division Industrial Chemicals will be higher than the GDP, driven by growth particularly in emerging countries. Supported by its expanded distributor network and ongoing collaboration with leading industry partners, SONGWON also expects that the new products launched in 2019, will soon begin to support continued growth.

Going forward, the organization intends to adhere to its ongoing strategy to secure the highest level of operational efficiency by investing in the latest technologies and will remain focused on appropriately managing its global businesses and expenses to improve positions. SONGWON is also committed to increasing its sustainability efforts and its focus on innovation which supports a circular economy.

Despite the ongoing global challenges, SONGWON is convinced that it has built itself a strong competitive position to enable the organization to remain on track and drive its strategy while delivering value for customers and most importantly creating long-term value for all its shareholders.