Seoul, Jan 8 (IANS): LG Electronics, South Korea's leading home appliance maker, on Wednesday estimated its fourth-quarter operating profit decreased more than 53 percent from a year earlier due to global economic uncertainties.
Operating profit for the three months ended in December dropped to an estimated 146.1 billion won ($100.7 million) from 312.5 billion won in the same period of 2023, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Sales, however, increased 0.2 per cent to 22.77 trillion won. The data for net earnings was not available, reports Yonhap news agency.
For the whole of 2024, LG Electronics said its operating profit likely decreased 6.1 percent on-year to 3.43 trillion won, while its sales climbed 6.7 percent to hit an all-time high of 87.74 trillion won.
The company said its operating profit went down due to a rise in shipping costs and one-off costs sparked by its stock consolidation efforts, but its flagship home appliances business showed robust performance.
LG Electronics' home appliances unit is expected to post annual sales of over 30 trillion won for the second consecutive year in 2024.
The company will release its final earnings report later this month.
Meanwhile, the company announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft, aiming to lead artificial intelligence (AI) innovations by combining its customer insights from various devices and spaces with the U.S. tech giant's advanced AI technologies.
Under the partnership, the two companies will collaborate on the development and advancement of AI agents for use in various spaces ranging from homes to vehicles, hotels, offices and more, LG Electronics CEO Cho Joo-wan said during a press event at CES 2025 in Las Vegas.
LG Electronics has incorporated Microsoft's speech recognition and synthesis technologies in its AI home hub project, enabling the AI to understand customers' various accents in different situations.
LG Electronics and Microsoft also plan to co-develop a new AI agent that not only interacts with customers but also predicts their needs and preferences.