China Steel Corp’s (CSC, 中鋼) pretax profit of NT$2.84 billion (US$97.55 million) last month grew more than threefold from a year ago, even though it registered an annual decline in sales in the period.
The company expects a stronger performance this quarter on the back of longer work days, higher product prices and lower costs, CSC vice president Lin Chung-yi (林中義) said by telephone yesterday.
Last month’s pretax profit was 4 percent higher than NT$2.76 billion a month ago and compared with NT$708.4 million a year earlier, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Monday.
Revenue fell 11.34 percent to NT$29.63 billion from NT$33.42 billion a year ago because of lower product prices, the filing said.
In the first four months, pretax profit totaled NT$8.54 billion, or NT$0.56 per share, compared with losses of NT$269.23 million a year ago, while accumulated revenue fell 7.22 percent to NT$118.09 billion from NT$127.28 billion the previous year, it said.
Grand Cathay Investment Services Corp (大華投顧) analyst Tsai Yen-ling (蔡燕鈴) said the company’s results in the first four months were better than expected and forecast that China Steel would register a higher profit this quarter because of a stable volume of sales with higher prices.
However, the company may maintain or slightly lower its steel prices for July and August shipments, which it is scheduled to announce on May 30, in view of low raw material costs and weak market demand, Tsai said.
China Steel’s shares rose 0.19 percent to NT$25.95 yesterday.
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