Gaon Cable (000500.KS) posted its best quarterly results on record in the third quarter, lifted by growth in the U.S. power infrastructure market and rising overseas shipments.
The company said on the 19th that preliminary third-quarter revenue on a consolidated basis came to 986.5 billion won ($690 million), with operating profit of 52 billion won and net profit of 30 billion won.
Revenue rose 51.9% from a year earlier, while operating profit jumped 99.1%. Both were quarterly highs. Compared with the previous quarter, revenue grew 13.5% and operating profit rose 43.9%, extending a steep growth trend.
For the first nine months of the year, revenue reached 2.62 trillion won and operating profit 116 billion won. That already exceeds the 2.55 trillion won in revenue and 79.2 billion won in operating profit the company booked for all of last year, in just nine months. Operating profit is growing faster than revenue, a sign of improving margins as the company pushes deeper into North America and sells more high-value products.
The company attributed the gains to stronger demand for cables and busducts, driven by a build-out of artificial intelligence data centers in the United States, expanded renewable energy facilities and heavier investment in transmission and distribution networks. A shortage of power cable supply in the U.S. market and rising infrastructure spending are also supporting the company's distribution cable exports.
LSCUS, the company's U.S. production subsidiary, is also picking up speed. Working with LS Cable & System, LSCUS has been supplying busducts to AI data centers run by major U.S. technology companies, establishing itself among the world's five largest busduct suppliers. With supply volumes for cables used in AI data centers and solar power facilities also increasing, LSCUS is expected to roughly double its annual revenue from a year earlier.
"The U.S. power infrastructure industry is in a medium- to long-term growth phase, underpinned by AI data center construction and expanded power grid investment," a Gaon Cable official said. "By strengthening export competitiveness at the parent level and expanding LSCUS's business, we will sustain record earnings and keep raising profitability."