Local Internet giant Naver Corp. turned out to have made the largest corporate donations in comparison to its earnings in 2013, according to data on Sunday.

Naver, which contributed 116.2 billion won, posted the highest donation-to-sales ratio at 5.02 percent, far outpacing all other players, which held figures hovering far below 1 percent, according to CEO Score.

The operator of South Korea's most-visited website increased its donations by nearly five-fold, despite its sales shedding 3.4 percent on-year in 2013.

In terms of total volume, Samsung Electronics, the world's top smartphone maker, posted the largest donation at 495.3 billion won, growing more than
two-fold from a year earlier, followed by KT with 131.5 billion won.

SK Networks, the trading unit of South Korea's No. 3 conglomerate SK Group, increased its donations by 10-fold over the cited period to reach 2.4 billion won, posting the fastest growth speed among the firms tallied.

The data showed that overall, the country's 78 major firms made a combined donation of 1.4 trillion won ($1.29 billion) last year, up 22 percent from a year earlier.

The figure marked a sharp increase considering the tallied firms posted weaker-than-expected earnings last year, with their sales and operating profit edging up 2.9 percent and 5.3 percent on-year, respectively.
      
(khnews@heraldcorp.com)