Hyundai Motor decided Thursday to pay out 269 billion won ($231 million) to shareholders as its first-ever interim dividend in a move to raise its dividend payment to global standards.

The carmaker said in a regulatory filing that it will pay a cash dividend of 1,000 won per share. It paid 3,000 won per share in dividends to individual shareholders late last year, which was 54 percent higher than the previous year.

Hyundai has been struggling to adopt shareholder-friendly policies since its stock prices plummeted following its 10-trillion-won land purchase in Gangnam, Seoul, for the group’s new headquarters in 2020.

Investors’ concern also grew as the company suffered dropping sales in China, while the strong won continued to weigh on the automaker’s price competitiveness in other key overseas markets. 

Due to these concerns, Hyundai Motor shares fell to 123,000 won last week, but closed at 138,000 won on Thursday over its better-than-expected second quarter earnings result.

The company posted 1.75 trillion won in operating profit, down 16.1 percent from the same period last year, similar to market expectations of 1.7 trillion won, according to Samsung Securities.

Sales of 1.23 million units globally grew 0.3 percent to 22.82 trillion won, according to the firm.

“Japanese and European competitors have been rallying backed by their weakening currencies. This is the hardest time (for us) in six years after the global financial crisis in 2009,” a company official said.

Hyundai said its domestic strategy would focus on releasing environment-friendly and compact cars, while promoting the new Tucson, a leading SUV model, in key markets including the U.S. and China. The automaker also said it will move up the release date of Creta sport-cute in emerging markets including India, Central and South America.

By Suk Gee-hyun and news reports (monicasuk@heraldcorp.com)