KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 17): Pos Malaysia Bhd announced that its net profit for the third quarter ended Dec 31, 2014 (3QFY14) had doubled to RM46.05 million or 8.57 sen per share, from RM22.83 million or 4.25 sen per share a year ago; while revenue grew 8.6% to RM358.05 million, from RM329.74 million previously.

Pos Malaysia attributed the growth in both the topline and bottomline to more business in the courier segment, which saw higher walk-in customers, as well as the launch of innovative prepaid products that is consistent with the growth in e-commerce transactions.

For the cumulative nine months ended Dec 31, 2014 (9MFY14), Pos Malaysia saw a marginal increase of 0.3% in net profit to RM107.15 million or 19.95 sen per share, while revenue marched 9.6% to RM1.1 billion, from RM1 billion in 9MFY13.

On segmental basis, Pos Malaysia’s courier division saw its profit jumped 35.7%, while the loss in the retail division narrowed by 58%. Meanwhile, the mail division saw its profit fallen 34.7% due to lower mail volume from prepaid and ordinary mail segments.

Going forward, Pos Malaysia (fundamental: 2.50; valuation: 0.9) expects its financial performance in FY15 to remain satisfactory.

“The continued growth in e-commerce business volume is expected to support the group’s performance for FY15, especially for domestic and international courier and parcel services, as well as financial services,” the group said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia this evening.

Pos Malaysia is controlled by DRB-Hicom Bhd, which has a 32.21% stake. Its other shareholders include Kumpulan Wang Persaraan with 11.5% stake, followed by Employees Provident Fund (11.64%), Aberdeen Asset Management Asia Ltd (7.74%) and Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (10.14%).

The stock closed 6 sen or 1.32% higher at RM4.59 today, giving it a market capitalisation of RM2.46 billion.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company's profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)