Socar reported first-quarter operating profit of 1.4 billion won on a consolidated basis, marking its seventh consecutive quarterly profit.
The company announced its first-quarter earnings Wednesday. Operating profit declined 1.8% from a year earlier. Revenue fell 26.1% year-on-year to 97.1 billion won.
Socar implemented its "Socar 2.0" strategy in 2023 to improve the efficiency of its vehicle assets. The company said the strategy has secured the fundamentals of its profit-generating structure. Through a vehicle lifecycle expansion strategy linking short-term car sharing with subscriptions, the lifetime value (LTV) of vehicles sold in the first quarter improved by 48% compared with 2022-2023. Monthly revenue and monthly gross profit (GP) per vehicle also rose 11% and 34%, respectively, from the first quarter of 2023, before the Socar 2.0 strategy.
By business segment, car-sharing revenue was 72.1 billion won, down 3.3% year-on-year, but gross profit rose 38% to 13.9 billion won through AI-based operational efficiency. The gross profit margin (GPM) improved by 6 percentage points to 19.3% from 13.4%.
Revenue from the subscription and commerce segment fell 63.4% year-on-year to 18.7 billion won as the company strategically reduced used-car sales volume, but the gross profit margin rose to 25.4%. Revenue at Modu Company, which operates the Modu Parking platform, grew 27% year-on-year on the back of an expanded partner parking network and increased users.
Socar also unveiled "Socar the Next," a future growth strategy built on two pillars: establishing a full-stack mobility platform and commercializing autonomous driving services. The company plans to build a product lineup encompassing vehicle subscriptions and used-car commerce, going beyond its existing car-sharing business. Socar aims to expand its business into a market worth more than 100 trillion won, including rental cars and vehicle commerce, leveraging its assets including a fleet of 25,000 vehicles, data on 16 million members across Socar, Modu Parking and Elecle, and a nationwide vehicle delivery infrastructure.
In autonomous driving, a core future business, the company has established Apex Mobility with Krafton (259960.KS), with capital of 150 billion won, to accelerate the commercialization of autonomous driving services. Using an average of 1.1 million kilometers per day of real-world driving and accident data, the company plans to advance End-to-End (E2E) autonomous driving technology and connect it to autonomous car-sharing and ride-hailing services to lead the future mobility market.
"Through AI-driven optimization of vehicle operations and the Socar 2.0 strategy, we have established a stable profit structure even in the first quarter, which is a seasonal off-peak period," Socar CEO Park Jae-wook said. "Now, we will create new growth engines by building a full-stack mobility platform and set new standards for the future mobility industry through the commercialization of autonomous driving services."
