ArcelorMittal, the largest steel maker of the world, reported on Tuesday $780 million net loss in the last quarter of 2010 against $1.109 billion net profit in the year-ago period.
Net sales, however, rose to $20.699 billion vis-à-vis $17.434 billion in the October-December quarter of the last year, said ArcelorMittal in a statement in Luxembourg.
The net profit of the company for the whole year, 2010, rose to $2.196 billion compared to $157 million in 2009.
Net sales during the period went up to $78.025 billion from $61.021 billion a year ago.
ArcelorMittal Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lakshmi N Mittal said: "Although 2010 continued to be a challenging year, as anticipated, we saw a slow and progressive recovery which enabled us to deliver a substantially improved performance compared with 2009."
"The gradual underlying demand recovery continues and we expect 2011 to be stronger than 2010," he said.