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.
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