Airmate (Cayman) International Co (艾美特), which makes electrical fans, heaters and home appliances, yesterday said that it has set a goal of revenue growth of between 5 percent and 10 percent this year from a year ago, despite a 5.63 percent drop in sales last quarter.
The company posted revenue of NT$2.82 billion (US$93.55 million) last quarter, down from NT$2.99 billion a year ago, because of a relatively warm winter, which depressed heater sales, manager Yasung Chuang (莊亞菘) said at an investors’ conference in Taipei.
The figure was 8.05 percent higher than the NT$2.61 billion earned the previous quarter.
“We face similar weather conditions every three or four years, and the decline was in line with our expectations,” she said.
Chuang said the company’s revenue this quarter would remain flat from the previous quarter, but rise significantly starting in the second half of this year as shipments of small home appliances, such as blenders, increase.
The company aims to raise the percentage of sales of small home appliances to between 15 percent and 20 percent this year from 6 percent last year, with those of air purifiers rising to 150,000 units this year from less than 40,000 units last year thanks to the severe air pollution in China, she said.
The company is also planning to increase its number of stores in China to 1,000 by the end of this year, from 600 at the end of last year.
Last year, Airmate posted revenue of NT$12.98 billion, up 12.09 percent from NT$11.58 billion in 2012.
Sales in China accounted for 50.31 percent of overall revenue last year, while Northeast Asian countries accounted for 35.26 percent, the company said.
It reported profit of NT$611.64 million, or NT$5.08 per share, last year, up 34.95 percent from NT$453.23 million, or NT$4.76 per share, in 2012.
That will allow the company to distribute a cash dividend of NT$2.55 per share, up from NT$2.5 last year, Chuang said.
Airmate plans to issue five-year convertible bonds to raise NT$1.3 billion next quarter to pay the cash dividend and finance its capital expenditure this year, she said.
The company will spend US$35 million this year to refurbish a plant in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province, China, Chuang said, adding that the project will be completed in October.
The new plant is to boost the company’s capacity to 50 million units a year from 20 million units.
The company will pay 120 million yuan (US$19.29 million) a year from 2017 through 2019 to purchase more factories and land, she added.
The company’s shares rose 0.13 percent to NT$79 in Taipei trading yesterday, underperforming the TAIEX, which was up 0.67 percent.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained