Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's largest automaker, said Thursday that its 2012 earnings reached a record high on robust sales in overseas markets.

Net profit reached 9.06 trillion won (US$8.96 billion) last year, up 11.7 percent from 8.1 trillion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Operating profit rose 5.1 percent to 8.4 trillion won in the same period, with sales rising 8.6 percent to 84.5 trillion won, the company said.

"We continued brisk performance in 2012," Hyundai Motor said in a report. "But the growth slowed down in the second half of last year due mainly to a strong local currency."

Its global sales rose 8.6 percent to 4.41 million units in 2012, compared with 4.06 million vehicles in 2011, said Hyundai.

In the domestic market, Hyundai Motor's sales shrank 2.2 percent on-year to 667,496 last year due to contracted demand, but its market share climbed 0.9 percentage point to 47.3 percent.

Its overseas sales, however, offset the sluggish domestic performance. Hyundai sold a total of 3.74 million vehicles outside of South Korea, of which 1.24 million units exported from South Korea and 2.5 million units produced at its overseas plants.

The company sold 703,000 vehicles in the United States last year, up 8.9 percent from a year ago, and saw its Europe sales jump

10.2 percent to 444,000 units, despite car sales in the region suffered a 7.8 percent drop last year.

For the fourth quarter of last year, Hyundai Motor posted an on-year 5.5 percent drop in its net profit to 1.9 trillion won, but sales rose 10.7 percent to 22.7 trillion won by selling 1.23 million vehicles. Operating profit plunged 11.7 percent to 1.8 trillion won in the period.

Hyundai Motor said it will continue to focus on quality management and developing environment-friendly technologies this year amid the yen's steep slide against the U.S. dollar. (Yonhap News)