Frencken’s H1 earnings fall 17% to S$26.1m despite higher revenue

INTEGRATED technology solutions provider Frencken Group on Thursday (Aug 11) announced earnings of S$26.1 million for the first half ended June, down 16.6 per cent from S$31.3 million in the same period last year.

The decline was mainly attributed to increased operating costs, weaker performance of its automotive segment, and expansion costs of new production facilities in Europe, Malaysia and Singapore.

Group revenue edged up 3.6 per cent to S$388.9 million in H1, from S$375.3 million in the year-ago period.

The increase was led by a 8.5 per cent rise in revenue from the semiconductor segment to S$152.8 million, lifted by higher orders for front-end semiconductor equipment from customers in Europe and Asia.

However, sales from the automotive segment fell 16.7 per cent to S$36.1 million due to continuing bottlenecks in the global supply chain.

Gross profit decreased 7 per cent to S$60.8 million, with gross profit margin falling 1.8 percentage points to 15.6 per cent.

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Shares of Frencken closed 0.8 per cent or S$0.01 lower at S$1.28 on Thursday, before the announcement.