CYBERJAYA, Selangor: Datasonic Group Bhd is aggressively promoting its businesses in West Africa and the Middle East under the national security programme which includes identification card (IC), passport, credit card and debit card solutions.
Deputy managing director Chew Ben Ben said company is selective in its tenders with a good local partner and expects the government there to also be a good paymaster.
"We put in bids, of which, we can generate around 20 per cent profit margin, in countries that are politically and financially stable. We're talking to government representatives in West Africa," he told reporters after the company's shareholders meeting here today.
In September 2017, Datasonic signed a partnership with Perum Percetakan Negara Republik Indonesia to facilitate the migration of all payment cards in Indonesia to EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) standards, by early 2022.
"Although the timeline is still a long way ahead in 2022, we are prepping our technical expertise there," Chew said.
"This gives us a headstart compared with our competitors. If we do get the contract, the payment terms will be per usable card."
“We hope to see earnings contribution from Indonesia, starting from the financial year ending March 2020," he added.
Chew said Datasonic is also looking forward to secure a sizeable immigration-related contract from the Saudi Arabian government, which handles more than two million Muslim pilgrims performing their Hajj, yearly.
"The Saudi government is very impressed with our facial recognition autogate technology, particularly in clearing one person at less than 15 seconds via our proprietary passport security features," he added.
Currently, Datasonic’s order book stands at RM958 million, which provides earnings visibility for the next three to five years.
On another point, Datasonic managing director Datuk Abu Hanifah Noordin said fake news alleging the company is politically-linked is hampering efforts to compete and win jobs based on own merits.
“I don't know why some media reports make false allegations that Datasonic is linked to political party United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) or Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM),” he said.
“We are not a politically-linked stock and our directors do not hold any positions in UMNO. We are bi-partisan.
"Our chairman Tan Sri Mohamad Hashim Mohd Ali, of seven years so far, is the brother-in-law of the Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad,” said Abu Hanifah.
“For the past decade, we have secured projects under the previous Barisan Nasional government. We also we work well with the then opposition government in Penang for the supply of closed circuit televisions (CCTV)," he said.
Abu Hanifah, who is Datasonic controlling shareholder with a 28.38 per cent stake, expressed exasperation that when fake news is spread, it affects the public’s perception on Datasonic.
A month before the 14th General Elections on 9th May 2018, Datasonic’s share price was trading at RM1.00.
Soon after the change of government, Datasonic’s share price began to slide to as low as 73 sen, at the beginning of this month.
To date, the shares have rebounded and is trading at around 85 sen per share.
“There's a false assumption that we won projects due to political ties. The truth is we’re a professionally run company. We compete and secure jobs, based on our own merits,” he added.