KUALA LUMPUR: Pentamaster Corp Bhd
says the current macroeconomic weakness is significantly limiting its ability to drive revenue growth.
“Weak demand across key segments, particularly in the automotive sector, where capital investments are sensitive to economic cycles and shifting government policies has prolonged the expected structural growth trend, leading to slow demand up-tick for the group’s solution offerings,” Pentamaster said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia.
The semiconductor test equipment manufacturer also highlighted that the ongoing aggressive pricing competition in the domestic China market continues to challenge margin preservation and expansion strategies for the group’s automated test equipment (ATE) segment.
“Given these conditions, the group expects sluggish demand to persist across its key segments for the remainder of 2024 and anticipates closing the financial year with flat revenue momentum.
“Despite these short-term headwinds, the Group remains committed to addressing the challenges in the ATE segment while continuing to leverage growth opportunities within the factory automation solutions (FAS) segment,” it said.
In the third quarter ended Sept 30, Pentamaster’s net profit tumbled almost 50% to RM11.8mil, or earnings per share of 1.66 sen compared with RM23.5mil, or 3.30 sen in the same corresponding quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter fell 16.9% to RM150.2mil against RM180.7mil posted a year ago.
In the first nine months to Sept 30, Pentamaster posted lower net profit and revenue of RM51.05mil and RM492.3mil, respectively.
Pentamaster is focusing on expanding in high-growth industries and pursuing long-term strategies to strengthen its position in the technology market, particularly with the growing demand for high-performance, high-bandwidth, and low-latency chipsets used in AI, data centers, high-performance computing, and advanced networking.
“With a diversified product portfolio aligned with global trends, the group
aims to mitigate risks from sector-specific downturns while capturing emerging growth opportunities in line with industry trends. As it is, the group’s new campus 3 facility, covering 720,000 sq.ft. mainly to support the growing needs of the FAS and medical devices segments, is nearing completion and expected to be operational by the first quarter of 2025,” it said.
