Hyundai Glovis is accelerating its push to become a global logistics company after reaching its 2030 target of a 7% operating profit margin ahead of schedule. The company is expanding vehicle shipments beyond Hyundai Motor and is also moving cargo tied to advanced industries such as defense, energy storage systems (ESS) and hydrogen.
According to industry officials on Feb. 19, Hyundai Glovis posted 29.567 trillion won ($) in sales last year and 2.073 trillion won in operating profit, up 4.1% and 18.3% from a year earlier. Its operating margin came to about 7.1%, achieving a goal CEO Lee Kyoo-bok had set five years early. At a "CEO Investor Day" in June 2024, Lee outlined a plan to invest 9 trillion won by 2030 to reach 40 trillion won in sales and a 7% operating margin.
All business lines grew: integrated logistics handling domestic and overseas transport (35%), the distribution unit covering CKD parts and used-car exports (47%), and ocean shipping (18%). A company official said Hyundai Glovis has helped clients cut logistics costs by leveraging routes built through Hyundai vehicle exports and by shortening lead times for auto-parts transport. The official added that proactive responses to free trade agreement risks and efforts to reduce costs at overseas plants helped win global customers.
Hyundai Glovis has signed long-term ocean shipping contracts with automakers including Volkswagen, BMW, Ford and GM, and it also transports vehicles from Tesla and China’s BYD across Europe. It recently shipped defense products to Poland and other parts of Europe, including 124 K2 tanks and 60 K9 self-propelled howitzers.
The company is also expanding into heavy and oversized breakbulk cargo that cannot be loaded into containers, such as power-generation equipment, trains, aircraft and mining machinery. It aims to lift non-affiliate revenue to 50% within four years. As of last year, cargo from affiliates accounted for 60.7% of volume, down 4.8 percentage points from the previous year.
Hyundai Glovis plans to deploy four LNG carriers by 2027 to transport cargo for Middle Eastern shippers and to begin ocean-shipping projects involving high-speed trains, petrochemical plant equipment and ESS batteries. It also plans to start transporting ammonia and liquefied hydrogen around 2031.
A company official said Hyundai Glovis aims to increase finished-vehicle ocean shipments from about 3.4 million units to 5 million and become the No. 1 car-carrier shipping company by 2030. The official said the company will build on its 147 logistics networks across 27 countries, freight-rate competitiveness and supply-chain flexibility to become a top-tier global player linking logistics, shipping and distribution.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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