GC said Tuesday that sales by the company and its subsidiaries in the first quarter of this year have slightly decreased due to transient factors.

GC headquarters in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.

GC's consolidated financial statement for the first quarter of 2019 showed the company’s total sale was 286.8 billion won ($246.8 million), down 2.5 percent from the same period of last year. The company also recorded an operating and profit of 1.4 billion won and 5.3 billion won, which plunged 90.5 and 71.4 percent, respectively, over the cited period.

Aside from its subsidiaries, the company saw its domestic sales fall by 5.1 percent.

“The sales decline is attributed to the discontinued distribution of products introduced from abroad,” a company official said. “However, blood derivatives business, which is the flagship division on the company, continued to grow by rising 2.2 percent.”

Although the total sales of overseas vaccines fell sharply, blood products and specialty pharmaceuticals grew 48.6 and 83.9 percent, respectively, backed by an increase in exports, he added.

The official stressed that fluctuating profitability was ascribable to the temporary increase in sales costs resulting from declined exports of varicella vaccine and the rise in selling, general and administrative expenses, including R&D investment, which rose 7.8 percent.

Despite sluggish sales by the parent company, GC’s affiliates achieved high growth. GC MS’s turnover climbed 16.3 percent year on year to 22.2 billion won to improve its operating profit, and GC Labcell's sales also increased 10 percent to 12.3 billion aided by the growth of sample screening services.

“Sales from the first quarter of this year are unlikely to have a significant impact on annual earnings as there was a temporary increase in costs and other factors,” the official said. “Our profitability is expected to improve rapidly in the second quarter as the company recently won a large-scale influenza vaccine orders from Latin America.”

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