from left: Supermax staff Shenny Lee, Rygin Lee and Janise Low showing the company's range of gloves during the 7th International Rubber Glove Conference and Exhibition
KUALA LUMPUR: Supermax Corp Bhd
expects its profit margin for financial year ending June 30, 2017 to rise by between 9% and 11%, given the growing demand for rubber gloves, consumption of contact lenses and through distribution of products.
Chairman Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz said going forward, product contribution from distribution centres would be higher when the sales marketing and the demand pool increased.
“The distribution centres will play an important role in future and contribute to our bottomline, in addition to the continued upgrading of our manufacturing efficiency in older plants,” she told reporters after the company’s AGM in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.
To step up to rising competition, Rafidah said, the group aimed to upgrade its technology, facilities and workers for better efficiency.
Group managing director, Datuk Seri Stanley Thai, said the group could overcome the impact of rising raw material costs, gas prices and foreign exchange fluctuations.
“The increase in the gas prices and minimum wages affect our operating costs. However, they are all settled with the weakening of the currency,” he said.
He saw the group would pass the recent sharp gains in rubber prices due to short-term fluctuations to its customers.
It was reported that the price of natural rubber (NR) latex was expected to increase in the next two months to reach to as high as RM5.42 per wet kilo in December 2016.
This forecast is made based on the recent price trend which saw the price of NR late rose by 39% in October 2016 as compared to January 2016, or a six per cent cost increase, as compared to September 2016.
“Any impact will be short term. Gloves are a necessity in the medical industry, any price increase is negligible to the end-users as we export 100 per cent,” he said.
On the contact lens business, he said, the company’s plant in Sungai Buloh, Selangor, could produce 40 million lenses a year at present.
This would be ramped up to 70 million next year, he said.
The contact lens business marks Supermax’s entry into high-end manufacturing being the first Malaysian company to make contact lenses.
The group also plans to set up a contact lens manufacturing plant in the US in future. -- Bernama
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