KT&G Corp., South Korea's dominant tobacco company, said Wednesday it is aiming to earn half of its revenue from overseas by 2025 as it seeks to open more overseas subsidiaries and explore new markets.

Currently, KT&G earns 40 percent of its tobacco sales from exports.

The company operates sales subsidiaries in five countries -- Russia, Indonesia, Turkey, Taiwan and the United States.

For the whole of 2020, its sales rose 6.8 percent to a record 5.3 trillion won ($4.68 billion) from 4.96 trillion won a year earlier helped by strong demand for its products in Russia, the US and the Middle East.

KT&G has four tobacco manufacturing plants in South Korea, Russia, Turkey, and Indonesia whose combined capacity reached 13.6 billion cigarettes a year as of last year.

On top of the mainstay tobacco business, KT&G wholly owns Korea Ginseng Corp. which produces ginseng and cosmetics products. (Yonhap)