This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on October 25, 2019 - October 31, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: ViTrox Corp Bhd saw its net profit halved to RM13.86 million or 2.94 sen per share for the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2019 (3QFY19), from RM28.02 million or 5.96 sen per share for the year-ago quarter, due mainly to sales volume decline.

The group also attributed the lower profitability to its product mix during the quarter, besides its continuous investment in research and development activities, according to its exchange filing yesterday.

Quarterly revenue contracted 34.6% to RM66.51 million, from RM101.77 million for the year-ago quarter, on lower customer demand for its automated board inspection and machine vision system, its filing showed.

This brings ViTrox’s nine-month (9MFY19) net profit to RM61.86 million, down 18.6% against RM76.04 million for the corresponding period last year.

Cumulative revenue came in 14% lower at RM244.5 million, compared with RM284.1 million for 9MFY18.

ViTrox said it will continue to focus on market expansion, customer relationship building and product innovation, to grow its business in its new financial year.

“Besides that, the group has taken steps to minimise its net monetary assets in order to mitigate the financial impacts arising from currency fluctuation,” it added.

Shares in ViTrox closed four sen or 0.49% lower at RM8.07 apiece, after 48,400 shares were crossed yesterday. The stock has gained over 28% thus far this year, bringing it a market capitalisation of RM3.8 billion.