Nongshim (004370.KS) Q1 2026: Group Profit +20%, U.S. Up 61%
Margin expansion, not volume growth, powered Nongshim's strongest earnings quarter in recent memory — with the U.S. segment lifting its operating margin to 8.7% and newly established NONGSHIM EUROPE B.V. turning profitable in its very first quarter of revenue.
Source: Q1 2026 Interim Report (63rd Fiscal Year, 1st Quarter) — Filed May 2026 with DART | Consolidated Financial Statements | Unit: ₩ billions
Nongshim's Q1 2026 results mark the clearest articulation yet of what the company's long-term investment thesis looks like in practice: a fortress domestic business generating free cash flow that funds an accelerating international push. Consolidated revenue of ₩934.0 billion rose 4.6% year-on-year for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, while operating profit surged 20.1% to ₩67.4 billion — an operating margin of 7.22%, up 93 basis points. The arithmetic of that divergence is operating leverage, and its source was a 2.0 percentage-point improvement in gross margin to 30.3%, achieved while palm oil prices climbed 5.7% and wheat rose 4.1%. The U.S. regional segment, long the company's most watched international unit, posted a 61.8% increase in operating profit to ₩12.3 billion against virtually flat revenue — a margin result, not a volume result — while NONGSHIM EUROPE B.V. booked its first revenue of ₩37.2 billion alongside a positive operating contribution, defying the typical first-year loss pattern for a new market entrant. Net income reached ₩60.7 billion, up 16.3%, for a net margin of 6.50%.
