South Korea's top 30 conglomerates increased their donations in 2016, but the sum compared with their sales did not change, a tally by a corporate tracker showed Monday.

Analysis by Fn Guide showed that 179 companies affiliated with the top 30 business groups contributed 1.99 trillion won ($1.77 billion) last year, up 6.15 percent from 2015. Their sales for the year hit 1,487.715 trillion won, up 4.61 percent.

Unlike what these numbers suggest, however, the donations accounted for 0.13 percent of their sales last year, unchanged from the previous year, the tally showed.

KT&G, the country's biggest tobacco producer, had the highest donation-to-sales proportion with 0.64 percent. But this is lower than the 1.07 percent of the previous year. The amount of the company's donations was down 35.12 percent.

KT, SK, Samsung, KCC, Mirae Asset, Hanjin, S-Oil and Korea Investment Holdings Co. were among the top in terms of the proportion.

Financially crunched Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, GS, LS, OCI, Daelim, Hanwha and Young Poong were at the bottom.

SK Group showed the biggest increase in monetary terms, donating 187.3 billion won more than the previous year. CJ came next with 31 billion won.

Samsung Group, on the other hand, shrank its contribution the most, downsizing it by 58.3 billion won. Yet, it was still No. 1 in monetary sum with 559.7 billion won.

Hanjin Group had the highest rate of increase, donating 539 percent more than last year to give 9.7 billion won. (Yonhap)