Beauty and daily merchandise retailer Poya International Co (寶雅國際) yesterday reported better-than-expected profit for the second quarter, as high-margin cosmetics and efficient cost controls further lifted the firm’s gross margin.
Poya posted NT$589.08 million (US$17.92 million) in net profit for the April-to-June quarter, up 23.98 percent from NT$475.13 million a year earlier.
That translated into earnings per share (EPS) of NT$5.61, up from NT$4.55 the previous year, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Photo: Amy Yang, Taipei Times
Gross margin was also better than expected at 43.87 percent in the second quarter, up 2.48 percentage points from a year earlier, while operating margin rose 1.06 percentage points to 12.35 percent after consolidated sales increased 6.57 percent year-on-year to NT$5.63 billion, company data showed.
Fubon Securities Investment Services Co (富邦投顧) earlier said it had expected Poya to post second-quarter earnings of NT$5.4 per share, gross margin of 43.5 percent and operating margin of 12.4 percent.
In the first half of the year, Poya’s net profit grew 13.9 percent year-on-year to NT$1.29 billion, with EPS of NT$12.31, as revenue increased 8.8 percent to NT$11.5 billion.
Gross margin and operating margin improved to 44.07 percent and 13.73 percent respectively from 43.07 percent and 13.52 percent, company data showed.
“Benefiting from accelerated store expansion and improved beauty store and store-in-store deployments, the company’s same-store sales are expected to maintain positive growth, which would further lift its operating margin and achieve double-digit percentage growth in profit,” Fubon Securities said in a note.
The “store-in-store” concept refers to a separate shopping area within a larger store that features products from a specific brand, with Poya and the brands benefiting from cost and product arrangements.
The retailer is one of the nation’s major distributors of cosmetic and skincare products. As of the end of last month, it operated 380 namesake stores, including 50 “Poya Beauty” flagship stores and 22 “store-in-store” concept shops, as well as 10 Poya Home hardware outlets.
The company launched 15 new stores in the first half of this year and is expected to open another 40 new stores in the second half, aiming to expand its operating scale to more than 400 cosmetics outlets by the end of this year. It hopes a larger operating scale could help it expand total sales and maintain its leading position among Taiwan’s cosmetics distribution channels.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
RSS