29th Apr 2014 12:35
LONDON (Alliance News) - JQW PLC declared a maiden final dividend as it saw pretax profit more than double in 2013, driven by improved margins and revenue growth.
The Chinese business-to-business e-commerce company proposed a maiden final dividend of 0.5 pence. JQW floated on the AIM Market last December.
JQW posted a pretax profit of MYR128.4 million in 2013, more than doubled from MYR62.9 million in 2012, as revenue rose to MYR493.1 million from MYR287.8 million. Revenue growth was driven by an increase in fee paying members to its platform. JQW had 197,000 members by the end of the year, up from 140,000 in 2012.
The company improved its gross profit margin to 50% from 47%.
JQW said it is focused on continuing to increase the number of members by adding sales agents in other parts of China; the company is looking to have 60 sales agencies by the end of of 2015. It has added five new sales agencies in the first quarter of 2014, taking its total to 35.
The company expressed confidence in its future growth, saying that 2014 had started well, and that the small medium enterprise market in China remains buoyant.
"The board is excited by the opportunities that it has identified in the market, including developing trading services, a bilingual platform as well as a platform for smartphone users, and we look forward to providing additional updates as we make further progress in these areas over the coming months," said Chairman Yongde Cai in a statement.
Shares in JQW were trading down 12% at 78.10 pence Tuesday afternoon.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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