THI Global Holdings Corp (台驊國際投資控股), a freight-forwarder and logistics operator, yesterday said that earnings for this quarter are expected to dip on an annual basis due to a high basis of comparison set last year.
The company attributed its conservative outlook to falling trade volume in China. Last month, China’s exports dropped 20.6 percent and imports declined 8 percent from January, according to data from the Chinese General Administration of Customs.
The drop was most pronounced in Europe and North America-bound export shipments, THI Global said.
In response, the company said it aims to capture opportunities in the imports sector by improving domestic delivery services.
“To stay competitive, logistics companies must take an approach similar to technology companies and improve capabilities to better serve the needs of retailers and e-commerce end clients,” THI Global spokeswoman Echo Wan (萬心寧) told an investors’ conference.
These capabilities include electronic data interchange — which enables the electronic exchange of business documents in a standard format between enterprises — and the streamlining of the company’s management of deliveries and warehouses.
The company’s net income last year rose 47.05 percent annually to NT$303.9 million (US$9.22 million), with consolidated sales increasing 0.08 percent to NT$9.74 billion.
Earnings per share were NT$2.7 last year, while gross margins improved by 2.23 percentage points to 19.28 percent.
Despite a slowdown in China, the company said it recorded encouraging operating results by focusing on more lucrative long-haul routes to the US and Canada.
Wan said that long-haul routes are a hard segment to break into, and the company is aiming to expand its lead over rivals by extending its routes to include Europe and offering a full array of vertically integrated logistics services.
Looking ahead, the company said that it has been preparing to capture opportunities from Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative by establishing new channels covering railroad networks connecting the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta and other major Chinese economic hubs in the country’s northeast.
The company’s coverage in Malaysia, the Philippines and India is to be further increased this year, it said.
The company’s board approved the distribution of NT$2 dividends — a cash dividend of NT$1.8 and a stock dividend of 2 percent — based on last year’s operating results.
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