Profit-making corporations in South Korea reported an overall rise in sales and more assets in 2014 compared to the year before, helped by growth in the country's service sector, the government said Friday.

According to Statistics Korea, there were 540,508 profit-making firms in the country last year, up 6.9 percent from 505,760 in 2013. It said that combined sales of these companies stood at 4,189 trillion won ($3.53 trillion), a gain of 58 trillion won from the year before with combined assets belonging to these companies reaching 7,990 trillion won. This represents a 5.8 percent on-year gain from the 7,552 trillion won tallied in the previous year.

"Sales were propped up by the service sectors that offset negative growth in manufacturing," the statistical office said.

"Despite widely held views, non-manufacturing businesses did relatively well last year."

It also said that last year's growth was led by small and medium enterprises, while large conglomerates struggled to pull off gains.

Sales in hospitality-related businesses surged 16.9 percent on-year, with tech-oriented services accomplishing 8.6 percent growth. The country's manufacturing sector, on the other hand, saw sales fall 2.8 percent vis-a-vis the year before.

It terms of assets, the specialized tech-oriented services along with wholesale and retail sectors saw gains reach 11.9 percent and 8.4 percent, respectively, with numbers for financial firms moving up 7.8 percent.

On the number of profit-making companies in operation, figures for hospitality firms shot up 19 percent on-year in 2014, with technology-focused service companies advancing 8.4 percent, followed by the 7.6 percent increase in telecommunications businesses.

The latest findings then showed that in 2014, wholesale and retail accounted for 25.9 percent of all corporations in the country, or some 140,000 businesses, with manufacturing coming in second at 21.1 percent. Construction ranked third, making up 15.3 percent of the total, and trailed by tech-oriented services at 7.3 percent.

The statistical office said the number of companies belonging to large conglomerates edged up 2.1 percent on-year to around 4,300, with combined sales inching up 0.2 percent to 2,663 trillion won.

SME numbers rose 6.9 percent to over 536,000 businesses, with sales gaining 3.6 percent to 1,526 trillion won. (Yonhap)