SEOUL, Jan 29 (Reuters) – Hyundai Motor on Thursday forecast higher sales and profit margin in 2026 after reporting a worse-than-expected 40% fall in fourth-quarter operating profit as a result of U.S. tariffs.
This marks the third consecutive decline in quarterly profit for the South Korean automaker, as the U.S. government under President Donald Trump slapped 25% tariffs on imported autos in April, which were slashed to 15% in November after a trade deal with Seoul.
On Tuesday, Trump said he would hike tariffs on autos and other imports from South Korea because of a delay in enacting the trade deal agreed last year that enabled the auto tariff cuts.
Hyundai, which together with affiliate Kia is the world’s third-biggest automaking group by sales, expected challenging business conditions to continue this year because of slowing growth in major markets and rising competition in emerging countries.
The company aims to improve operating profit margin to 6.3%-7.3% this year from 6.2% last year by boosting vehicle shipments and increasing sales of higher-end models, it said in an earnings release.
Hyundai booked operating profit of 1.7 trillion won ($1.19 billion) for the October-December period, compared with 2.8 trillion won in the same period a year earlier.
The result compared with a 2.7 trillion won LSEG SmartEstimate drawn from 17 analysts. The consensus estimate gives more weight to analysts who are more consistently accurate.
($1 = 1,426.2900 won)
(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and Heekyong Yang; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Christian Schmollinger)
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