AEON Credit (00900) was held on September 30 for the interim results for 2016 ending August 31. Group General Manager Hideo Tanaka lamented that there are too many uncertainties in the market, and telecommunications fraud has had an impact on the company's telephone sales. In the future, business in Hong Kong and the Mainland will mainly focus on maintaining the status quo and there will be no major changes.
Zhitong Finance learned that in the six months ended August 31, 2016, the company achieved revenue of HK$606 million (the same unit below), compared with RMB629 million in the same period last year; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was RMB152 million, a year-on-year increase of 27%; basic earnings per share was RMB36.33 Hong Kong cents; and dividends of RMB18.0 Hong Kong cents per share.
AEON Credit Finance is a subsidiary of AEON Finance and one of the subsidiaries of AEON. The company's business is mainly divided into four categories, including credit cards, installment loans, insurance and rental and purchase.
According to Zhitong Finance, although the credit card business fell slightly in the first half of the year, it still accounts for 81.3% of the group's business, and the credit card business revenue accounts for 68% of the group's overall business revenue.
In addition, in order to avoid the adverse impact of uncertainty on the value of the collateral and to improve the efficiency of credit management human resources, AEON sold all mortgage receivables and certain receivables of revoked customer loans in the first half of the year, and received a one-time income of HK$21.1 million.
Hideo Tanaka told Zhitong Finance that as the phone fraud case had a huge negative impact on telephone sales in Hong Kong, commissions for insurance business fell by 33.6% to 11 million yuan in the first half of this year. Although the income from handling fees and overdue fees increased, the overall other operating income still fell from 78 million yuan in the same period last year to 75.7 million yuan.
Hideo Tanaka pointed out that the global economy was seriously challenged in the first half of 2016. The slowdown in inbound tourists in mainland China and weak local consumption in Hong Kong hit Hong Kong's retail industry. At the same time, the volatility of financial markets, the depreciation of the RMB and the normalization of federal fund interest rates have also further weakened consumer confidence.
He said that the rent in Hong Kong is expensive, and electronic loans and other things have had a certain impact on the company's business, so there is no new store opening plan. The scale of Hong Kong's business will also remain in the status quo and there will be no layoffs.
Hideo Tanaka told Zhitong Finance that the mainland Chinese market has great room for development and hopes that the company can continue to expand its business in the mainland in the future. However, there are too many uncertain factors in the market at present, and it is temporarily in a wait-and-see state and there will be no specific moves in the near future.
