Sino Techfibre, the producer of microfibre, polyurethane (PU) synthetic leather and pattern moulding paper (PMP) in China, says sales in the fourth quarter of FY2009 ended 31 December 2009 surged 21.6% to RMB 326.6 million ($67.6 million) as all of its core products registered healthy growth.

The group says it sold 66.7% more PU synthetic leather, from 3.6 million square metres in 4Q08 to 6 million square metres in 4Q09 while sales of microfibre synthetic leather more than doubled from 1 million metres sold in 4Q08 to 2.3 million metres in the latest fourth quarter. It sold 0.5 million metres more of its PMP products, amounting to 2.7 million metres.

Average selling prices of all three product groups registered growth when compared to the preceding 3Q09, signalling the worst may be over for the group. However, when compared year-on-year, the group still turned in lower average selling prices compared to 4Q08.

Along with higher cost of goods sold and higher selling and administrative expenses, the group posted another quarter of losses, but at a much lower level. In 4Q09, the group posted a net loss attributable to shareholders of RMB6.2 million which was a 93.9% improvement over the net loss of RMB102.6 million recorded in the preceding 3Q09. The first two quarters of FY2009 yielded a net loss of RMB154.1 million.

For the full-year ended Dec 31 2009, the group posted a net loss attributable to shareholders of RMB263 million on the back of revenue of RMB961.3 million.