KUALA LUMPUR: Book company Sasbadi Holdings Bhd is now poised for a strong 2019 after having gone through some tough times.
Sasbadi group managing director Law King Hui said it had weathered the storm arising from weaker retail sentiment over the past two years.
The company is now in better footing now after having implemented cost-cutting measures to improve efficiency and diversify its business.
“We are now more confident about our directions and the current state of the country’s economy,” he said, citing that government had taken proactive measures to revive the economy.
“For the financial year ending August 31, 2019 (FY19), we expect better results from all the non-academic related segments, while achieving better efficiency in our marketing and sales efforts to attract partners in overseas,” Law told reporters after Sasbadi’s annual general meeting yesterday.
Sasbadi’s net profit rose 84 per cent to RM4.38 million in the first-quarter ended November 30, 2018 from RM2.38 million a year ago.
Its revenue grew 10.9 per cent to RM30.50 million from RM27.51 million. Tis was attributed to higher contribution from its print publishing division due to new textbook contracts with the Ministry of Education (MoE), non-academic products and contribution from the sales of Marshall Cavendish Education products.
Law said Sasbadi was optimistic about growing its presence in foreign markets, leveraging on its sales of intellecttuall property (IP) rights and contents for export market.
Sasbadi’s exports diversification is expected to provide better earnings visibility from the collection of payments of the guaranteed ‘passive’ income.
“We expect to improve our sales not from our traditional print-publishing business but also our export segment focusing on education (pre-school), reading for pleasure and non-academic such as comics and novels.
“We are positive on 2019’s growth as we embarked on various activities to gain better earnings,” he said.
The company will aggressively partake in book fairs in Frankfurt, London, Shanghai, Beijing and the Middle East to attract potential partners for the sales of IP rights.
“This mainly involves licensing agreements with partners where we sell our IP rights by allowing them (partners) to print and market the contents in their respective countries.
“We will then get upfront payments from our partners for the minimum sales of books. Partners also need to report and update us on their 12-month sales performance for our royalties payments involving copies sold,” he added.
The company had last year signed with publishers in Vietnam and China for a total of 48 books as well as other deals for comics.
“We had also collected RM200,000 for the upfront payment paid by our partners. We also follow up with other potential partners in overseas including US, China and Pakistan to expand our export market,” he said.
He said Sasbadi will also step up its marketing efforts in the rights licensing and book export market as part of its efforts to grow export-based revenue.
Law pointed out that Sasbadi aims to expand its business reach from the current print-publishing to more targeted market such as digital with augmented reality (AR) technology.
“We have in-house expertise in developing this reading technology contents. We are able to face the challenges and deliver digital education programme to fulfil the market needs” he said, adding the Sasbadi did not require capital expenditures but rather reward its existing staff to enhance its digital technology contents.
Law believed the print-publishing market is still relevant for the company backed by the new government transformation programme comprising new textbook contracts and other tenders with the Ministry of Education (MoE).
“MoE received the highest budget allocation for the Budget 2019 about RM60.2 billion. We hope to benefit from more tender opportunities being offered.
“We are optimistic of the government’s initiative to promote Malaysia as a reading nation by 2030 for the 10-year programme. UNESCO had also chose Kuala Lumpur as the World Book Capital for 2020.