SEOUL: South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co reported a nearly 50 per cent drop in quarterly profit on Tuesday, falling significantly short of analysts’ estimate, hurt by rising raw material costs and a one-off expense associated with employees’ bonuses.

Hyundai Motor, which together with affiliate Kia Corp is among the world’s top 10 automakers by sales, reported a net profit of 547 billion won ($456.32 million) for October-December, versus 1.1 trillion won a year earlier, report agencies.

Analysts warn that soaring prices of raw materials, component shortages and logistical bottlenecks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to further drive up costs in the current quarter. “It’s hard to find a commodity for which prices are not rising and the situation is not expected to change in the foreseeable future,” Lee Jae-il, an analyst at Eugene Investment & Securities, said before the results were announced.