Agri-food company Japfa saw its earnings surge 500% to US$76.8 million ($105.7 million) for 1H20 ended June, from $12.8 million a year ago, due to strong performance registered from both Animal Protein – Other (APO) in Vietnam, and Dairy.

Core PATMI without forex increased 132% y-o-y to US$83.0 million from US$35.8 million.

Earnings per share for the period came in at 3.82 US cents, from the 0.60 US cents logged a year ago.

Conversely, group revenue in 1H20 fell 2.8% y-o-y to $1.83 billion due to a reduced demand in Indonesia amidst the Covid-19 outbreak.

1H20 group operating profit grew 7.5% y-o-y to US$146.6 million led by growth in operating profit from Japfa’s APO segment driven by continuing high swine fattening average selling prices due to shortage in supply in Vietnam. Operating profit margin rose 0.8 percentage points to 8.0%, while EBITDA grew 5.9% y-o-y to US$214.4 million in 1H20.

Cost of sales for the group fell 4% y-o-y to $1.46 billion.

Segmentally, PT Japfa Tbk saw a decrease in revenue to $1.15 billion due to lower poultry feed and DOC volumes following lowered demand for poultry in Indonesia.

The APO segment posted strong growth, with a 16.8% increase y-o-y in revenue to $364.4 million due to an increase in swine fattening price and poultry feed sales volumes

The Dairy segment grew 10.7% y-o-y to US$244.5 million due to higher raw milk prices due to a supply shortage in China. Japfa says the supply shortage and strong raw milk price environment will continue over the medium term as it takes time for the industry to build new dairy farms and reach the “full milking” stage.

The Consumer Food segment saw an improvement in its operating profit due to the increased demand for frozen products during Covid-19.

As at end June, cash and cash equivalents stood at $289.7 million, up from the $131.0 million a year ago.

As at 1.28pm, shares in Japfa were changing hands 1 cent higher, or 1.5% up, at 67 cents.