Beauty and daily merchandise retailer Poya International Co (寶雅國際) yesterday reported better-than-expected net income in the first quarter, as revenue and profit margins improved significantly from a year earlier.
The company posted net profit of NT$784.59 million (US$24.17 million) for the January-to-March quarter, up 11.84 percent from NT$701.52 million a year earlier, it said in a regulatory filing.
That translated into earnings per share of NT$7.48, the highest for a single quarter in the company’s history and up from NT$6.71 the previous year.
Photo courtesy of Poya International Co
Gross margin was also better than expected at 44.45 percent, up 0.19 percentage points from a year earlier, while operating margin rose 0.24 percentage points to 15.29 percent after consolidated sales climbed 7.2 percent year-on-year to a record NT$6.3 billion, company data showed.
Poya is one of the nation’s major retailers of beauty, cosmetic and skincare products. It also sells textiles, household accessories, food, groceries and hardware items.
As of the end of last month, Poya operated 419 namesake stores, including “Poya Beauty” flagship stores, standard Poya stores and “shop-in-shop” concept stores.
The “shop-in-shop” 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.
Poya plans to continue opening new stores, and accelerate beauty store and shop-in-shop store deployments this year to increase its penetration across Taiwan, it said.
During its last earnings conference in February, the company told investors that it expected to achieve double-digit growth in the number of store openings this year, with a net increase of more than 50 stores.
At the same time, Poya plans to invest more in digitalization and closely target female customers to optimize its product portfolio and offer a better consumer experience, it said.
In addition, the company plans to introduce more own-brand products this year to enhance its brand value and contribute to earnings growth, it said.
Own-brand products, which offer higher profit margins, accounted for 2.9 percent of its total sales in February, company data showed.
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
CUSTOMERS’ BURDEN: TSMC already has operations in the US and is a foundry, so any tariff increase would mostly affect US customers, not the company, the minister said Taiwanese manufacturers are “not afraid” of US tariffs, but are concerned about being affected more heavily than regional economic competitors Japan and South Korea, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said. “Taiwan has many advantages that other countries do not have, the most notable of which is its semiconductor ecosystem,” Kuo said. The US “must rely on Taiwan” to boost its microchip manufacturing capacities, Kuo said in an interview ahead of his one-year anniversary in office tomorrow. Taiwan has submitted a position paper under Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act to explain the “complementary relationship” between Taiwan and the US