Doosan Group's Q3 operating profit nearly doubles year over year; AI lifts Doosan Electro-Materials Business Group to a record

[Financial News] Doosan Group nearly doubled its operating profit year over year in the third quarter, thanks to strong sales of electronic materials amid expanded investment in AI infrastructure and improved results at key affiliates. Electro-Materials BG, the core of its own businesses, posted record quarterly revenue.
Doosan Group announced on the 9th that it recorded consolidated revenue of 5.4269 trillion won and operating profit of 459.4 billion won in the third quarter of this year. Revenue rose 22.2% and operating profit 98.4% from the same period a year earlier. The operating margin also rose 3.3 percentage points to 8.5%.
The improvement was driven by Electro-Materials BG, the core of Doosan Group's own businesses. Doosan Group is a business holding company that holds stakes in its affiliates while also directly producing and selling electronic materials and other products. Its flagship product, copper-clad laminate (CCL), is a key material for printed circuit boards (PCBs) and is used in AI accelerators, servers and semiconductors. Electro-Materials BG revenue reached 802 billion won in the third quarter, setting a new quarterly record.
This is believed to reflect increased sales of materials for AI accelerators, memory and optical modules amid greater investment in data centers worldwide. Sales of network materials related to AI accelerators and 800-gigabit-class communications grew on strong demand for data center servers. Demand also remained solid for semiconductor materials used in high-performance memory products such as DRAM and NAND flash.
Buoyed by strong results at Electro-Materials BG, Doosan Group's own businesses saw revenue surge 70.2% year over year to 892.2 billion won and operating profit jump 119.6% to 237.9 billion won. The company forecast that growth would continue in the fourth quarter, led by products for AI accelerators and optical modules. Its revenue forecast for Electro-Materials BG for the full year is 2.91 trillion won, while the forecast for its own businesses as a whole is 3.2618 trillion won.
The company is moving to expand production capacity. To meet demand for CCL amid the expansion of AI infrastructure, it plans to invest about 970 billion won domestically and overseas by 2028 and increase production capacity by the end of 2029 to about 2.7 times its level in September this year.
Key affiliates also contributed to the improved results. Doosan Enerbility, which supplies power generation equipment and components for nuclear power plants, posted consolidated revenue of 4.4494 trillion won and operating profit of 261.2 billion won in the third quarter. These figures were up 14.7% and 90.6%, respectively, from the same period a year earlier. Orders accumulated through the third quarter of this year totaled 9.999 trillion won, including a construction contract for the Misfah combined-cycle gas power plant in Oman and a contract with TerraPower to manufacture key equipment for small modular reactors (SMRs).
Doosan Bobcat, which manufactures compact construction equipment and industrial vehicles, posted revenue of 2.4635 trillion won and operating profit of 167.4 billion won. These figures rose 16.5% and 25.3%, respectively, from the same period a year earlier. Revenue increased across all regions and product categories, while higher sales volumes and pricing policies supported the improvement. By product, sales of compact equipment rose 15%, industrial vehicles 8% and portable power products 5%. By region, sales rose 15% in North America, 14% in Asia, Latin America and Oceania, and 3% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

[email protected] Jung Won-il Reporter