KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 30): Poh Kong Holdings Bhd is upbeat on its prospects in FY20 in light of the uptrend in gold prices.

Executive chairman and group managing director Datuk Choon Yee Seiong said the group foresees gold prices to be on an upward trend going forward, hence it is hopeful the group's performance for the financial year ending July 31, 2020 (FY20) will be in line with its strong first quarterly results.

"Gold prices were affected by many factors, such as geopolitical tension and economic conditions. The current uncertain environment has spurred a lot of investors' [interest] to go for gold products. Analysts are also upbeat [that] gold prices [will] trend up to between US$1,600 and US$1,700 next year," Choon said.

Bloomberg data showed spot gold price rose 0.32% to trade at US$1,515.34 per ounce at 2.05pm. Over the past one year, the price of gold has been trading in the range of US$1,266.35 to US$1,557.11 per ounce.

Poh Kong's net profit for the first quarter ended Oct 31, 2019 came in 2.6 times higher at RM8.08 million compared with RM3.16 million in the same quarter a year ago, as the group's profit margin improved amid higher gold prices.

The stronger bottomline came in despite a 20.7% year-on-year decline in revenue to RM205 million from RM258.36 million, due mainly to a decrease in demand for gold jewellery products.

At 3.20pm, Poh Kong shares were down half a sen or 1% at 49.5 sen, with 136,000 shares done, bringing a market capitalisation of RM203.12 million.