JMI Syringes & Medical Devices' net profit plunged by 54 per cent year on year to Tk 15.12 million in nine months through March this year owing to strong dollar and higher import costs.
The supplier of medical equipment, especially syringes, to the government, had made a Tk 32.53 million profit in the same period of the year before.
Accordingly, earnings per share (EPS) stood at Tk 0.50 in July-March of FY24, down from Tk 1.08 in the same period of the previous year, according to a disclosure published on Thursday.
Appreciation of US dollar against taka, increase of raw material & packaging materials cost, utility cost and other related overhead, dragged down the profit, said the company in its earnings note.
JMI Syringes has to import all types of raw materials except for the packaging operations done at its factory. But the import costs jumped manifold due to the devaluation of Taka against the dollar along with higher energy and utility costs.
The company had seen its business growth accelerate after the government had launched the Covid-19 vaccination programme in early 2021.
The company's most of the revenue came from the syringe supplies, because the government had to use millions of syringes to implement the vaccination programme.
As the pandemic waned, the demand for syringes declined at a time when import costs increased due to costlier dollars, which impacted the profit, said an official of the company, seeking anonymity.
"Despite increasing production costs, we could not raise the products prices in line with the production costs," said the official.
The net operating cash flow per share, a measure of a company's ability to generate cash from its operations, rose to Tk 3.38 per share, from negative Tk 1.09 in the previous year.
The company explained that the net operating cash flow per share has been positive as several payables against the purchase of raw and packaging materials and other expenses have decreased significantly.
The net asset value, which refers to the excess of total assets over total liabilities, dropped to Tk 85.87 per share as of March this year, down from Tk 86.37 in December 2023.
However, the company's profit for the third quarter (January-March of this year) jumped 230 per cent year on year to Tk 10.75 million, up from Tk 3.26 million in the same quarter last year.
In FY 2022-23, the medical device manufacturer incurred a loss of Tk 150 million for the first time since listing, owing to higher cost of production. Despite losses, the board declared a 10 per cent cash dividend.
Listed in 2013, its stock price fell 0.31 per cent to Tk 126.6 on Thursday at the Dhaka Stock Exchange.
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