Makalot Industrial Co (聚陽), a manufacturer of ready-to-wear apparel and functional clothing, yesterday saw its shares slip 0.99 percent after reporting a weaker-than-expected operating profit for last month.
Operating profits contracted 17.53 percent to NT$179.42 million (US$5.83 million), compared with NT$217.56 million in July, the company said in a Thursday filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The figures “fell short of our expectations,” Jih Sun Securities Investment Consulting Co (日盛投顧) analyst Channie Wang (王章妮) said in a research note yesterday.
Last month’s operating profits were only 26.8 percent of Jih Sun’s estimate for all of the third quarter, Wang said.
Combining July and last month, Makalot’s operating profits totaled NT$397 million, achieving 59.4 percent, rather than 60 percent, of Jih Sun’s estimate for the quarter, she said.
Makalot’s pretax profits contracted 14.21 percent sequentially to NT$196.84 million last month, from NT$229.45 million in July, but grew 15.56 percent from NT$170.33 million a year earlier, company filings showed.
The results matched Jih Sun’s expectations, due to non-operating income of NT$17.42 million, Wang said.
In the first eight months of the year, Makalot’s pretax profit increased 10.39 percent to NT$1.15 billion, from NT$1.04 billion in the same period last year, making for pretax earnings per share of NT$5.5, up from NT$5.03.
Over the same period, cumulative revenue edged up 0.67 percent to NT$14.69 billion from NT$14.589 billion, the company said.
Makalot’s annual capacity reaches 14.2 million dozen, with production bases and business locations spread across Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, China and the Philippines.
Its major clients include GAP Inc, Kohl’s Corp, Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing Co and Target Corp.
The company should see a rebound in revenues and profits this month due to seasonal factors, Wang said.
“September is usually the peak month for Makalot. Besides, winter apparel usually makes for higher gross margins,” Wang said. “The company will see growth momentum build up gradually.”
Wang forecast that Makalot would post NT$1.5 billion in net profit this year, up about 16 percent from NT$1.29 billion last year and translating to earnings per share of NT$7.18 this year, up from NT$6.18 last year.
Revenue would expand at an annual pace of 7.28 percent to NT$24.01 billion this year from NT$22.38 billion, she said.
Makalot shares closed at NT$150.5 in Taipei trading yesterday. They have gained 20.4 percent in the year to date.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”