Malaysian Firm Sees Vinyl Floor Sales Rising

Bukit Mertajam, Malaysia, March 3, 2009--Tek Seng Holdings expects sales of its PVC flooring products to pick up in the current quarter ending March 31.

Executive chairman Loh Kok Beng told The Star that sales for the first quarter had picked up compared with the preceding quarter last year.

He said its local sales in the fourth quarter dipped by about 10% while exports dropped by 30% compared with the third quarter.

“This was because plastic resin prices were sliding downwards. When prices are on the way down, customers usually want to wait for them to drop further before restocking their inventories.

“Since January, plastic resin prices have been going up, prompting customers to stock up before the prices rise some more. This is why our domestic and export sales have picked up,” he said.

The current price of plastic resin is about 20% more than the selling price of about $580 per ton last December.

Loh said the group expected to achieve similar results in the current quarter as it did a year ago.

Tek Seng posted over 37% jump in revenue to $10.4 million while its pre-tax profit nearly doubled to $943,000 for the first quarter ended March 2008 compared with a year earlier.

For the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, Tek Seng reported pre-tax loss of $323,000.

Tek Seng sells its PVC flooring products to about 40 countries, with its export sales contributing about 36% to group revenue.