Sales in the Proprietary Brands and Medical Hypermart & Digital segments, however, remained stable with slight increments of 1.4% and 1.7%, respectively.
Notably, administrative expenses grew 20.4% to $2.5 million from $2.1 million a year ago due to higher depreciation costs following a reclassification of assets and capital expenditure relating to the group’s integrated facility, as well as increased compliance costs and listing fees.
These were offset in part by lower office rental due to the reclassification of the operating lease as a right-of-use asset.
In all, gross profit for the quarter fell 1.3% to $9.5 million from $9.6 million previously, although gross profit margin grew to 35.1% from 31.4% a year ago.
“While our first quarter results was impacted by specific market situations such as Vietnam, we are also expanding our business footprints to other countries. We will also continue to explore interesting opportunities in our space and identify good business partners who can help distribute our products in new markets,” comments Lim See Wah, executive chairman and CEO of Hyphens Pharma.
Shares in the group closed flat at 21 cents on Monday.
