TV and online retailer Momo.com Inc (富邦媒體) on Thursday last week reported its lowest earnings per share (EPS) for the January-to-March quarter in three years, affected by non-operating losses of NT$4.6 million (US$155,217).
The firm’s EPS for the first quarter reached NT$2.2, compared with NT$2.21 during the same period last year and NT$2.45 two years ago.
The decline came as net income fell 0.4 percent year-on-year to NT$307 million, the company said in a statement on its Web site.
However, after adjusting for one-time disposal gains or losses and effects from the International Financial Reporting Standards 9 guidelines, recurring net income for the quarter increased 8.7 percent year-on-year to NT$327.3 million and EPS expanded to NT$2.34, Momo.com said.
Accelerating growth in the company’s online business-to-customer (B2C) business and a recovery in TV home shopping helped boost the company’s revenue last quarter 34.3 percent annually to NT$10.18 billion, surpassing NT$10 billion for the first time in a single quarter, it said.
The 34.3 percent year-on-year growth is also the fastest on a quarterly basis since the company was listed on the nation’s main board in December 2014, it added.
“Mobile sales in B2C saw a 70.7 percent increase year-on-year and remains the key driver to B2C’s growth, as we continue to gain market share from e-commerce peers and brick-and-mortar retailers,” Momo.com said. “Market share gain and scale remain top priorities for our B2C business.”
The company’s revenue breakdown showed its B2C online shopping site Momoshop.com (Momo 購物網) as contributing 82.44 percent to the company’s overall revenue last quarter, while the TV home shopping segment contributed 14.34 percent.
Momo.com, which also operates a platform for catalog shopping, said the average number of active members in the first quarter stood at 7.1 million per month, up 5.7 percent from a year ago, with average spending exceeding NT$2,000 per transaction, up 8.8 percent annually.
The company was upbeat about its business outlook for the first half, citing aggressive marketing activities for Mother’s Day and special sales for consumer electronics and household items, as well as a product lineup expansion through partnerships with major brand vendors, it said.
Momo.com shares on Friday last week rose 0.2 percent to NT$250 in Taipei trading. The shares have risen 15.97 percent in the past 12 months, higher than the broader market’s 6.9 percent increase over the period, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
In Italy’s storied gold-making hubs, jewelers are reworking their designs to trim gold content as they race to blunt the effect of record prices and appeal to shoppers watching their budgets. Gold prices hit a record high on Thursday, surging near US$5,600 an ounce, more than double a year ago as geopolitical concerns and jitters over trade pushed investors toward the safe-haven asset. The rally is putting undue pressure on small artisans as they face mounting demands from customers, including international brands, to produce cheaper items, from signature pieces to wedding rings, according to interviews with four independent jewelers in Italy’s main
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has talked up the benefits of a weaker yen in a campaign speech, adopting a tone at odds with her finance ministry, which has refused to rule out any options to counter excessive foreign exchange volatility. Takaichi later softened her stance, saying she did not have a preference for the yen’s direction. “People say the weak yen is bad right now, but for export industries, it’s a major opportunity,” Takaichi said on Saturday at a rally for Liberal Democratic Party candidate Daishiro Yamagiwa in Kanagawa Prefecture ahead of a snap election on Sunday. “Whether it’s selling food or
CONCERNS: Tech companies investing in AI businesses that purchase their products have raised questions among investors that they are artificially propping up demand Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday said that the company would be participating in OpenAI’s latest funding round, describing it as potentially “the largest investment we’ve ever made.” “We will invest a great deal of money,” Huang told reporters while visiting Taipei. “I believe in OpenAI. The work that they do is incredible. They’re one of the most consequential companies of our time.” Huang did not say exactly how much Nvidia might contribute, but described the investment as “huge.” “Let Sam announce how much he’s going to raise — it’s for him to decide,” Huang said, referring to OpenAI
Nvidia Corp’s negotiations to invest as much as US$100 billion in OpenAI have broken down, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, exposing a potential rift between two of the most powerful companies in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. The discussions stalled after some inside Nvidia expressed concerns about the transaction, the WSJ reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the deliberations. OpenAI makes the popular chatbot ChatGPT, while Nvidia dominates the market for AI processors that help develop such software. The companies announced the agreement in September last year, saying at the time that they had signed a letter of intent for a strategic