Taiwanese garment manufacturer Quang Viet Enterprise Co (廣越) yesterday gave a positive business outlook for the rest of the year, as the high season for down jacket sales approaches.
The Taipei-headquartered firm produces high-end down jackets for global sportswear and functional clothing firms, and counts Nike Inc, Adidas AG, and North Face Inc among its top clients.
“Revenue in the third quarter usually generates 50 percent of the company’s total sales, while the first quarter and the second quarter take up only 5 percent and 25 percent respectively,” a Quang Viet investor relations official said by telephone.
Revenue for the whole of this year is expected to increase by more than 10 percent from last year’s NT$9.04 billion (US$300.4 million), buoyed by increasing orders from Nike, the official said, adding that order visibility is looking brighter.
The firm has raised its shipment forecast for this year from 10 million units to 10.5 million units, compared with last year’s 9.1 million units, bolstered by better customer demand.
Alongside its core down jacket business, Quang Viet said it also plans to acquire a knitwear plant in Vietnam this year to expand its market presence in the global garment industry.
The acquisition — which is to be completed by the end of this year at the earliest — would help the company diversify its product portfolios and help mitigate the effect of the slow season, the company said.
Quang Viet said it is also discussing another overseas acquisition project to bolster its product competitiveness, but it declined to elaborate.
As its mid-term capacity expansion target, the garment maker plans to add 130 production lines to its two plants in Vietnam over the next three years.
Quang Viet operates three plants in Vietnam and two in China, with a total capacity of 950,000 units of clothing per month, company data showed.
Cumulative sales in the first five months of the year soared 25.68 percent to NT$1.12 billion from NT$887.5 million a year earlier.
The growth was attributed to improving sentiment in the global garment industry.
In the first quarter, Quang Viet posted a net loss of NT$179.3 million, or NT$1.73 per share, while sales rose 15 percent annually to NT$786.9 million, company data showed.
The company primarily attributed the performance to mounting foreign-exchange losses of NT$48 million during the period that ended in March.
Shares of Quang Viet yesterday dropped 0.29 percent to close at NT$170.5 in Taipei trading, underperforming the broader market, which rose 0.68 percent, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
However, the stock has gained nearly 17 percent so far this year, suggesting the market has largely priced in the earnings guidance.
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