The group, known for supplying the national ID card (MyKad) and passport chips, also recorded its best ever revenue in FY2023, with a 152.7% jump to RM344.71 million from RM136.43 million in FY2022.
This comes despite the controversy surrounding its contracts totalling RM1.1 billion secured over the years from the home ministry via direct negotiations.
The company announced a fourth quarter net profit of RM22.7 million, up 69.82% from RM13.37 million last year.
Datasonic attributed its best-ever top line performance to the “higher supply of passports, smart cards and personalisation services”.
Executive chairman Abu Hanifah Noordin said the demand for passports has been strong since the reopening of international borders.
“We anticipate this trend to continue in the near future. With that, Datasonic remains highly committed to meeting the demand with timely and uninterrupted deliveries as part of our ongoing contributions to national security.
“In addition to this core focus, the group is also excited about the potential for orders of MyKad to rebound to pre-Covid levels,” he added.
Datasonic‘s outlook going forward will be underpinned by its healthy order book which stands at RM339 million as of March 31, 2023, it added.
The group declared a fourth interim dividend of 0.75 sen per share, bringing the total dividend per share for FY2023 to 2 sen.
Datasonic’s contract uncertainty
The spotlight on the group’s contracts came to light in April when home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail revealed that seven out of nine contracts Datasonic procured from the home ministry were through “direct negotiations”, including the passport chip supply contract.
However, the company said most of the contracts were initially awarded through open tender. It said due to the nature of the project, going through a long tender process “might not have been effective and timely”.
“Therefore, we were engaged through a direct negotiation process. It has been a common practice that our price negotiations always resulted in a 5% to 10% reduction,” Datasonic said at the time.
The group secured a RM31.39 million additional contract to supply 12.5 million passport chips over two years until November 2023 in August last year.
Currently, there are still about four million expired passports, according to the company’s estimates.
Apart from the passport chips, Datasonic also holds contracts to supply passport documents, foreign worker identification cards called i-Kad, MyTentera and MyPoca identity cards, and more.
At market close, Datasonic fell 1.16% or 0.5 sen to 42.6 sen, valuing the company at RM1.24 billion.