KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 26): Inari Amerton Bhd's net profit fell 7.26% year-on-year to RM86.81 million in the second quarter ended Dec 31, 2023 (2QFY2024) from RM93.61 million, due to set-up costs for new products and higher electricity costs.

The decline more than offset the impact of higher revenue, which rose 2.89% to RM414.08 million, from RM402.46 million a year ago, thanks to a high loading volume in radio frequency (RF) and optoelectronics segments, it said.

Quarterly earnings per share slipped to 2.32 sen, from 2.51 sen in 2QFY2023. Inari declared a dividend of 2.2 sen per share, bringing its 1HFY2024 payout to 4.4 sen per share, down from 4.8 sen per share a year ago.

Notably, this is Inari’s third consecutive quarter of improvements on a quarter-on-quarter basis. The latest net profit went up 1.31% from RM84.98 million in the preceding quarter, while revenue rose 7.85% from RM383.93 million.

In the first half ended Dec 31, 2023 (1HFY2024), Inari’s net profit fell 14.05% to RM171.79 million, from RM199.86 million a year ago, while revenue rose 2.38% to RM798 million from RM779.46 million on higher RF segment growth.

“In its latest forecast for the semiconductor market in November 2023, World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) anticipates revival in the global semiconductor market for 2024 with projections indicating a 13.1% growth.

“International Data Corporation (IDC) in its publication on Dec 21, 2023 reported that with the gradual recovery of smartphone demand and the strong demand for AI chips, the semiconductor market is expected to recover in 2024 with an annual growth of 20%.

"[As] the outlook for the semiconductor industry is positive in 2024, the group continues to work on new opportunities coming onshore into Malaysia’s OSAT (outsourced semiconductor assembly and test) ecosystem to grow our revenues, [and] at the same time focus on strategies to improve our production capacity and utilisation, strengthen our operational efficiencies,” it said.

Inari shares fell 4.2% or 14 sen to close at RM3.16 on Monday, giving the group a market capitalisation of RM11.85 billion.