GLONGHUI, August 11丨Hi-Tech (02086.HK) announced that the company expects to record a net loss of about HK$4.4 million for the six months ending June 30, 2023, and a net profit of HK$0.1 million for the same period last year.

The Board believes that the shift from net profit to net loss is mainly due to the following factors: (1) the increase in staff costs to HK$20.0 million (prior period: HK$16.5 million), mainly due to an increase in the number of employees and a decrease in employee wages capitalized as development costs. During the reporting period, the Group recruited more employees to be responsible for overseas development to expand overseas sales. As a result, the number of employees in the Group increased from 112 on June 30, 2022 to 123 on June 30, 2023. Employee wages capitalized as development costs were reduced to HK$1.8 million (prior period: HK$2.8 million) because the Group had many new products in the research stage during the reporting period; and (2) net exchange earnings fell to HK$0.3 million (prior period: HK$1.6 million). This is because of the large depreciation of RMB against the Hong Kong dollar during the past period, which led to a significant decrease in payable balances denominated in RMB, so it recorded a high net exchange income over the past period.