00:02You're listening to AI PRISM from Seoul Economic Daily.
00:06LG Electronics just posted record 9-month profit, up 55.9%, even as its own third-quarter numbers missed forecasts.
00:16The company is now teaming up with Apple on smart home devices, covering more than 3 billion combined units.
00:22POSCO just finished the first phase of a lithium plant in Argentina that took 8 years to build.
00:28And Amore Pacific is expanding in India while pulling back in the Philippines.
00:34It's Thursday, October 8th. Let's look at a business story shaping corporate Korea.
00:39LG Electronics has lacked its own mobile hub since exiting smartphones in 2021, while Apple has no appliance lineup of
00:47its own.
00:47The gap each company is now filling together.
00:50POSCO has spent 8 years and nearly a billion dollars building a lithium supply chain meant to rival its steel
00:57business.
00:57And Amore Pacific is executing a board-level global rebalancing strategy that redirects capital toward faster-growing markets.
01:06Here's what the numbers show.
01:07LG Electronics posted cumulative 9-month revenue of $71.4 trillion, or about $52.9 billion,
01:15and operating profit of $4,346 billion, or about $3 billion, up 9.2 and 55.9% year-on
01:26-year.
01:27Third-quarter operating profit alone came in at $781.8 billion, or about $579 million, below the roughly $1 trillion
01:37the market expected.
01:38The Apple partnership launches October 13th with jointly developed smart home hardware,
01:44starting with door locks and security cameras, before potentially widening into a shared device ecosystem.
01:50POSCO's new Phase 2 plant in Argentina adds 23,000 tons of annual lithium carbonate capacity,
01:57backed by $954 million in investment.
02:00Combined with its existing Phase 1 plant, POSCO now controls 48,000 tons of lithium carbonate capacity in Argentina alone,
02:09enough to supply roughly 1.25 million electric vehicles once fully converted to hydroxide.
02:16Amore Pacific's India revenue nearly tripled in three years to $26.5 billion,
02:22prompting a new premium division.
02:24Its Philippines unit shut its Laneige online store on September 30th,
02:29after revenue stalled near $7.3 billion for two straight years.
02:33So what does this mean for the C-suite managing Korean operations and supply chains?
02:38Earlier, we said LG posted record nine-month profit while missing its own quarterly forecast.
02:44Here's what that actually means for you.
02:47The Apple alliance is a long-horizon ecosystem bet, not a near-term earnings fix.
02:52So expect continued margin pressure in the meantime.
02:56POSCO's lithium build-out is a live, board-level case study in resource strategy paying off,
03:01worth benchmarking against your own supply chain.
03:04And Amore Pacific shows rebalancing decisions can be made market-by-market rather than regionally.
03:09Watch the October 13th Apple LG launch for how far the device ecosystem extends.
03:15Watch POSCO's Phase 3 and 4 plants, targeted for 2033 at a combined 100,000 tons.
03:22And watch LG's fourth-quarter numbers for whether the InnoTech currency drag persists.
03:27That's today's AI Prism, CEO.
03:31This episode was produced with AI assistants based on Seoul Economic Daily reporting
03:35and reviewed by a human editor.
03:38AI Prism is a Juan Ifra award-winning series.
03:41We'll be back tomorrow.
03:42You've been listening to AI Prism from Seoul Economic Daily.
