Cosmo Chemical (005420.KS) staged a first-quarter earnings rebound this year on the back of strong growth in its secondary battery materials business.
The company disclosed its preliminary first-quarter 2026 results on Thursday. On a consolidated basis, revenue reached 60.6 billion won ($44 million) and operating profit came in at 5.5 billion won ($4 million). Revenue rose 33 percent from a year earlier. Notably, both operating profit and pretax profit swung to the black from the previous quarter.
The results reflect the immediate pass-through effect from rising prices of cobalt and nickel, key raw materials, into selling prices. A favorable foreign exchange environment also helped improve profitability.
The titanium dioxide segment, the company's core business, faced cost pressure from a recent rise in the price of sulfuric acid, a raw material. However, the company rapidly ramped up its utilization rate following maintenance work conducted at the end of last year, boosting operational efficiency. With price hikes planned to reflect increases in sulfuric acid and other material costs into product prices, a gradual improvement in profitability is expected.
"We have flexibly responded to external conditions such as raw material price fluctuations and exchange rates, achieving meaningful results in the battery materials segment," a Cosmo Chemical official said. "The TiO2 business is also recovering its earnings power through utilization rate normalization and price realization, and we will firmly maintain the overall earnings turnaround trend this year."
