Stella International Holdings Ltd reported that 2024 first quarter revenues increased approximately 17.6 percent to $326.3 million, compared to $277.4 million in the prior-year quarter. The increase was the second consecutive quarter for positive growth for the Hong Kong-based the developer, manufacturer and retailer of footwear and leather goods and also represented an acceleration from the 13.6 percent growth posted in the 2023 fourth quarter.

Shipment volumes for the first quarter increased by approximately 21.9 percent year-over-year (YoY) to 11.7 million pairs. Again the percentage increase in pairage shipped accelerated from the 2023 Q4 trend, nearly doubling the 10.9 increase in the fourth quarter.

The company said the growth in Q1 was led by the Sports category.

The company reported that average selling price (ASP) decreased approximately 3.5 percent YoY due to the higher proportion of Sports and Casual product orders which tend to have a lower ASP.

“Having achieved an operating profit margin of 10.7 percent in 2023, we are ahead of schedule in meeting the goals of our Three-Year Plan (2023-2025), which are to achieve an operating margin of 10 percent and a low-teens annualised growth rate on profit after tax by the end of 2025. We are confident that we will continue to meet these targets in the coming two years,” the company wrote in its Q1 operations report.

“We are pleased to see year-on-year revenue and volume growth in the first quarter led by our Sports customers, as well as the unique, premium products we have developed for customers across all categories which continue to perform well in the market,” offered Group CEO Chi Lo-Jen. “Although our ASP declined slightly due to the higher proportion of Sports and Casual product orders which have a lower ASP, we are confident that we will continue to meet our margin and profitability targets under our Three-Year Plan.”

Lawrence Chen, chairman of the Group, added, “As we reach close-to-full utilisation across our Luxury, Fashion and Casual product categories, we will continue to ramp up our manufacturing facility in Solo, Indonesia and work towards completing our development of an additional production facility in Bangladesh to expand our capacity. This will enable us to reallocate capacity from Vietnam to Indonesia which will help further improve our product mix.”

Image courtesy Stella International Holdings