The board of directors declared an interim dividend of five sen per share and a special dividend of 7.5 sen per share, bringing full-year payout to 27.5 sen per share. KUALA LUMPUR: Amway (Malaysia) Holdings Bhd is cautiously optimistic over delivering revenue growth in 2021 with plans to roll out several initiatives to support direct sellers and long-term business growth.
These include the launch of the Amway Privileged Customers programme and new sales incentives to direct sellers, new product launches and promotions and investments in a digital platform and other infrastructure enhancements. Although prudent management of other expenses will help to mitigate the impact of these programmes and investments, these initiatives are expected to exert pressure on the group’s operating margins, it said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia.
MALAYSIA’s direct selling industry, an inadvertent beneficiary of the Covid-19 pandemic, is expected to grow turnover at a solid pace over the next few years amid strong interest from consumers and distributors.
“We’ve seen growth almost every year over the last decade,” Datuk Tan Chong Guan, president of the Direct Selling Association of Malaysia (DSAM), tells The Edge in an interview.
Turnover has been growing at a double-digit pace since 2017, says Tan, citing figures from the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs. In 2017, turnover grew 16.5% year on year to RM15.9 billion, a year later by 12.8% to RM17.93 billion, and in 2019 by a further 20.1% to RM21.54 billion.
BURSA Malaysia-listed companies have realised how important it is to be cash rich when faced with an unexpected and severe situation like the Covid-19 pandemic.
This is especially given the tough economic conditions the business community has had to weather in the past year, with lockdowns enforced in Malaysia and its major trading partners to contain the spread of the virus, bringing activities practically to a standstill.
Many companies built up their cash positions in 2020 in anticipation of the severe economic downturn due to Covid-19, notes private investor and former investment banker Ian Yoong.
“Larger listed companies issued bonds and other fixed-income securities. It is a natural response to be conservative in the face of an impending severe economic downturn,” he says.