Shares in Fulgent Sun Group (鈺齊國際), which produces shoes using specialized fabrics, yesterday jumped 9.92 percent in Taipei trading after the company posted a record net profit for last quarter.
Shares rose by close to the daily limit to NT$73.1, this year’s highest, while the benchmark TAIEX edged down 0.17 percent to 9,716.4 points amid heightened geopolitical tensions.
The Yunlin-based shoemaker’s stock price has risen 13.3 percent since the beginning of this year, company data showed.
On Friday, the company posted net profit of NT$264.7 million (US$8.72 million) for the first quarter, a 53 percent increase from NT$172.6 million a year earlier, on the back of a larger production capacity and higher gross margin supported by a better product mix.
Based on the firm’s 138.5 million issued shares, net profit for the first quarter translated into earnings per share of NT$1.92, compared with NT$1.31 per share in the same period last year.
From January through last month, accumulative revenue fell 4.6 percent from NT$2.47 billion to NT$2.36 billion, according to the statement.
However, gross margin over the period rose from 18 percent to 24.3 percent on a yearly basis, boosting operating income by 67 percent to NT$345.7 million.
As part of its ongoing business strategy to maintain competitiveness, the company has been trying to improve revenue contribution from its Gore-Tex-certified products, which have higher gross margins compared with its other sports footwear.
To meet rising demand for Gore-Tex certified shoes, Fulgent Sun said that it would add new production lines that might lift the company’s overall capacity by between 10 and 15 percent this year.
Five new production lines at its Cambodian plant and three lines at its Vietnamese plant are scheduled to start production by the middle of this year, Fulgent Sun spokesman Sunny Liao (廖志誠) told an investors’ conference last month.
The company has no plans to expand capacity at its three production bases in China.
In related news, Taiwanese shoemaker Feng Tay Enterprise Co’s (豐泰鞋業) net profit declined in the first quarter, primarily due to the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the US dollar.
The company, which supplies about one-sixth of Nike Inc’s footwear, saw its net profit fall 11.7 percent annually to NT$807 million, or earnings of NT$1.21 per share.
In the first quarter, Feng Tay’s revenue declined 4.38 percent to NT$13.6 billion on an annual basis, company data showed.
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