PETALING JAYA: MBM Resources Bhd
will continue to mitigate rising operating costs through improvements in process efficiency and productivity.
“Despite the more challenging environment, the group remains cautiously optimistic on the outlook for 2023.
“The market will be driven by the rush to deliver the backlog orders before the end of March 2023, the introduction of new models and the sale of recently launched electric vehicles,” the auto parts manufacturer said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday.
In the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2022 MBM’s net profit tumbled 49% to RM57.4mil, or an earnings per share of 14.68 sen, against RM112.8mil, or 28.86 sen a year, earlier.
Revenue, however, rose 16.5% to RM651.4mil from RM558.9mil achieved last year.
For the 12-month period, MBM posted a net profit of RM281.5mil on a revenue of RM2.3bil.
MBM declared a second interim single-tier dividend of six sen per ordinary share amounting to RM23.45mil and a special single-tier dividend of 15 sen per ordinary share amounting to RM58.63mil for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2022.
Meanwhile, RHB Research in a recent report said it was turning bullish on the local auto parts market.
“Orders across the board are still resilient and not slowing down as we had previously feared. In Perodua’s case, the outstanding 220,000 orders are much stronger than we anticipated.
“With the recently launched all-new second-generation Axia, we think Perodua will continue to receive strong orders for the rest of 2023.”
MBM Resources has a 22.58% stake in Perodua.
Additionally, RHB Research said consumer sentiment could start to improve as the country approaches the end of the rate hike cycle.
“Nevertheless, our ground checks found that for the national marques (whose buyers may be more sensitive to higher rates), the increase in hire purchase (HP) rates has not been meaningful and in some cases has remained in the 3.3% to 3.5% range.
“Our sensitivity analysis showed that in the scenario where the HP rate rose to 3.5% from 3%, the maximum increase in monthly repayment amounted to only RM15.
“Our tracking of Bank Negara statistics also showed that auto loan approval rates have not fallen, but have been trending upwards since the second half of 2021.”
