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.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”