On August 22, 2024, K & P International (00675.HK) announced its interim performance. In the first half of 2024, the group's turnover was approximately 89.3 million Hong Kong dollars, a decrease of 6.2% from the same period last year. The overall gross margin increased by about 69.1% to approximately 15.9 million Hong Kong dollars compared to the same period last year. The loss attributable to shareholders of the company was approximately 10.8 million Hong Kong dollars, compared to a loss of 24.1 million Hong Kong dollars in the same period last year, with a basic loss per share of 4.05 Hong Kong cents.
In the first half of 2024, due to higher than average inflation, long-term high crediting costs, and uncertain economic prospects, consumer consumption intentions remained weak. As a result, the group's turnover decreased by 6.2% compared to the same period in 2023. Nevertheless, the group benefited from the increase in customer sales orders after the main customers cleared excess inventory in 2023, leading to a relatively improved utilization rate of the group's production lines and an improvement in the gross margin compared to the same period last year. In addition, due to the significant volatility of the RMB exchange rate in the first half of 2024, the group decided to terminate all forward mmf contracts and incurred a one-time realized loss of approximately 9.6 million Hong Kong dollars. Subsequently, the group will temporarily suspend the signing of forward mmf contracts as a measure to manage the impact of RMB exchange rate fluctuations on future production costs.