SEOUL - South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co reported a nearly 50% drop in quarterly profit, 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.

That compared with an average analyst forecast of 1.5 trillion won compiled by Refinitiv SmartEstimate.

  - Reuters