Health food company Grape King Bio Ltd (葡萄王) yesterday reported record sales for last year and offered a positive business outlook for this year.
The company, which produces the Come Best tonic drink and Granoderma King nutritional supplements, said direct-sales subsidiary Pro-Partner Inc (葡眾), as well as manufacturing units and sales channels in Taiwan and Shanghai, all contributed to its sales growth last year.
The company’s sales have exceeded NT$10 billion (US$322.6 million) for the second consecutive year after consolidated revenue last year increased 2.35 percent to NT$10.64 billion from NT$10.39 billion the previous year, Grape King said in a regulatory filing.
Photo courtesy of Grape King Bio Ltd
Last month, revenue increased 7.89 percent year-on-year to NT$1.2 billion, the highest monthly level in the company’s history, it said.
That helped boost last quarter’s revenue to increase 2.4 percent from a year earlier to NT$3.2 billion, also the best performance on a quarterly basis, it added.
Grape King said in a statement that its operations in Taiwan reported a double-digit percentage increase in sales for last year, as the contract manufacturing business saw sales rise 10.8 percent annually due to rising demand for its lactic acid bacteria and mushroom raw materials, while the own-brand business reported sales that grew 13.9 percent in the year thanks to stable demand for healthcare products and the effect of promotional campaigns for its energy drinks.
The stable performance of its Chinese contract manufacturing business and the launch of additional sales channels across the Taiwan Strait during the third quarter also helped boost Shanghai Grape King’s sales to expand 46 percent last year, it added.
The company is positive about its business outlook for this year and is optimistic about its three major business units, it said, citing new production lines in Taiwan that have come online and high-margin health food supplements by Pro-Partne that are scheduled to hit the market soon, along with the introduction of brand channel business by Shanghai Grape King.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS