Cosmetics chain operator Poya International Co (寶雅國際) yesterday said its board of directors has approved a proposal to distribute a cash dividend of NT$23.9 per share this year, plus a stock dividend of NT$0.1 per share, after earnings per share (EPS) rose 12.1 percent from 2021 to NT$20.26 last year.
The company is scheduled to hold its annual general meeting on May 30 in Tainan, where shareholders are to vote on the dividend proposal, the company said in a regulatory filing.
The proposal would represent a dividend yield of about 4.3 percent, based on the company’s closing price of NT$559 in Taipei trading yesterday.
Photo: Liao Yao-tung, Taipei Times
As of the end of last year, the company had 320 outlets in Taiwan selling cosmetics, lingerie, skincare and stationery products, and was also operating 40 Poya Home (寶家) hardware stores as of Dec. 31, it said while releasing its financial results for last quarter and last year as a whole.
In the October-to-December quarter, Poya International’s consolidated net profit increased 5.97 percent quarter-on-quarter and 18.59 percent year-on-year to NT$657 million (US$21.63 million), the firm said in a separate filing.
That translated into EPS of NT$6.43, up from NT$5.49 a year earlier. Gross margin was better than expected at 45.8 percent, while operating margin rose to 16.2 percent after sales increased 8.3 percent year-on-year to NT$5.14 billion in the quarter.
For the whole of last year, the company’s net profit totaled NT$2.07 billion, up 12.45 percent from a year earlier, or EPS of NT$20.26, the filing showed.
Consolidated revenue totaled NT$19.48 billion last year, up 11.5 percent year-on-year, with gross margin decreasing 0.71 percentage points to 43.16 percent and operating margin rising 0.28 percentage points to 13.58 percent, the filing showed.
To maintain its leading position in Taiwan’s cosmetics distribution channels, Poya has said it plans to add new stores and strengthen its membership programs this year.
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) latest smartphones carry a version of the advanced made-in-China processor it revealed last year, results from an independent analysis showed. This underscored the Chinese company’s ability to sustain production of the controversial chip. The Pura 70 series unveiled last week sports the Kirin 9010 processor, research firm TechInsights found during a teardown of the device. This is a newer version of the Kirin 9000s, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) for the Mate 60 Pro, which had alarmed officials in Washington who thought a 7-nanometer chip was beyond China’s capabilities. Huawei has enjoyed a resurgence since
purpose: Tesla’s CEO sought to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the rollout of its ‘full self-driving’ software in China and approval to transfer data they had collected Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on an unannounced visit, where he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of "full self-driving" (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chinese state media reported that he met Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla's development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation. Musk confirmed his meeting with the premier yesterday with a post on social media platform X. "Honored to meet with Premier Li