KUALA LUMPUR, 8 NOVEMBER 2018 – ECS ICT Berhad (ECS, 佳杰科技; Bloomberg: ECS MK; Reuters: ECSI.KL) (“ECS” or the “Group”), Malaysia’s leading Information & Communications Technology (“ICT”) distributor, announced a slight drop of 1.0% in revenue for the third quarter ended 30 September 2018 (“Q3FY18”) to RM436.2 million, as compared to RM440.8 million in the preceding year’s corresponding quarter (“Q3FY17”). The lower revenue was due to slower market conditions and the uncertainties surrounding the change in government, as well as the transitional period of replacing the Goods & Services Tax with Sales & Service Tax (“SST”).

The Group’s gross profit (“GP”) for the quarter under review increased by 14.4% to RM24.1 million, as compared with RM21.1 million last year. In addition, ECS posted a 41.7% increase in profit before tax to RM10.2 million for Q3FY18, as compared with RM7.2 million last year. The increased PBT was due to a highgross profit margin of 5.5% from the product mix, compared with 4.8% last year. Subsequently, the Group posted a 56.9% higher profit after tax (“PAT”) of RM7.7 million, as compared to RM4.9 million recorded for Q3FY17.

During the quarter, the Group reported improvement for both Enterprise System segment and ICT Services. Both recorded improvement of 27.7% at RM120.9 million and 15.0% at RM9.1 million as compared with RM94.7 million and RM7.9 million recorded last year respectively. The increased of Enterprise System segment was mainly due to higher sales mainly from servers, storage and software. Revenue from ICT distribution, however, fell 9.5% to RM306.2 million as compared to RM338.2 million recorded for Q3FY17 with lower sales of notebooks, smartphones and tablets.

In line with its dividend practice, ECS is declaring a single tier interim dividend of 2.5 sen per ordinary share amounting to RM4.5 million, payable to shareholders on 19 December 2018.

“The economic uncertainties across the region as well as Malaysia have dampened the overall market sentiment. The reintroduction of the SST in September 2018 has also impacted many ICT products and services,” said Chief Executive Officer of ECS, Mr. Soong Jan Hsung.

“The consumer spending remains weak and there are not many public sector and Government Linked Companies projects, but we are putting in extra effort to build up our commercial enterprise business to cover the shortfall of other business segments. The business outlook for last quarter of 2018 remains challenging but we strive to maintain the momentum from our Q3FY18 performance,” Mr. Soong added.