KUALA LUMPUR: Supermax Corporation Bhd's net profit more than doubled to RM71.06 million in the third quarter (Q3) ended March 31, 2020 from RM34.96 million a year ago.
The company saw increased overall sales, mainly due to surge in sales from its overseas distribution centres as a results of exponential surge in demand due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The growth in sales were also driven by higher average selling prices from the glove manufacturing division as a results of the global rush in stocking up on personal protective equipment (PPE) products including medical gloves.
Its revenue in Q3 increased 23.8 per cent to RM447.25 million from RM361.19 million.
For the nine-month period, Supermax' net profit increased 15.9 per cent to RM125.97 million from RM108.69 million, while revenue increased 8.0 per cent to RM1.2 billion from RM1.11 billion.
Supermax said the Covid-19 pandemic had brought the group bumper profits beginning March and April, 2020, for both the distribution division from the seven countries it operates and the glove manufacturing division in Malaysia.
Supermax said following the outbreak of Covid-19 globally, the company was seeing the emergence of new consumers and new consumption not previously seen.
As demand grows, the company is building three new factories in tandem.
This allowis it to capitalise on the exponential growth in demand of medical gloves, reduce its widening capacity oversold position, and increase overall capacity to cater to the acute global shortage of PPE.
Supermax is investing a total capital expenditure of RM715 million.
"The three plants would add 12.0 billion pieces per annum to the group's installed capacity from 26.18 billion gloves to 38.18 billion gloves when these plants have completed commissioning and in commercial production fully by calendar year 2022," it said.