Malaysia’s Top Glove Corp Bhd yesterday posted a more than 20-fold jump in third-quarter net profit, beating record earnings of three months earlier thanks to high demand for gloves, efficiencies in production and higher selling prices.
This was despite rising material prices due to less favorable weather conditions and supply constraints.
Net profit for the three-month period grew 2,030 percent to 2.38 billion ringgit (US$585.6 million) from 111.4 million ringgit a year earlier, the world’s largest glove manufacturer said in a filing to Malaysia’s bourse.
Revenue rose 294 percent to 4.76 billion ringgit.
The performance was slightly below the 2.48 billion ringgit estimate by one analyst polled by Refinitiv.
The manufacturer posted a record quarterly net profit of 1.29 billion ringgit in the previous quarter, when it announced plans to list in Hong Kong next year.
“We have had a strong and healthy start [to the 2021 fiscal year], which sets a positive tone for the rest of the year,” Top Glove managing director Lee Kim Meow (李金喵) said in a statement.
The firm said that higher sales orders, capacity building and productivity improvements were expected to boost the group’s performance.
Top Glove last month shut some of its factories in Malaysia due to a COVID-19 outbreak in which more than 5,000 of its workers tested positive for the virus.
The company at the time said that the temporary closures could lead to delivery delays and cut sales this financial year by about 3 percent. Even so, it remained optimistic in its outlook.
The firm estimated that glove demand would grow by 20 percent this year, 25 percent next year and 15 percent after the COVID-19 pandemic.
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