CLINCHING the top spot in the Southeast Asia region category of the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd’s 2020 Asia Pacific Technology Fast 500 index reflects the proactive and innovative stride of ARB Bhd (previously Aturmaju Resources Bhd), a provider of Internet of Things (IoT) and information technology (IT) solutions.
The index is an annual ranking of the fastest-growing Asia Pacific companies in the hardware, software, communications, media, life sciences and clean technology industries.
Awardees are selected for the Technology Fast 500 ranking based on their percentage of fiscal year revenue growth over three years.
The Main-listed ARB beats an Indonesian company, five Singapore-based companies and another Malaysian company (Involve Asia Technologies Sdn Bhd) en route topping the list in the Southeast Asian category with 799% growth rate over a three-year period.
Ranked 72nd overall, ARB’s growth rate also surpassed the average revenue growth of 551% of the top 500 companies in the Technology Fast 500 index.
“Being recognised as the top company in the Southeast Asia region under Deloitte Touche’s list is a reflection of the proactive measures and innovation undertaken by the group, especially during a year impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic,” commented ARB’s executive director Datuk Seri Larry Liew Kok Leong
“We can see from the list that only eight of the Southeast Asia companies made it to the list. It shows the competition that we are facing in the Asia Pacific region.”
ARB has seen its revenue jumped by 114% year-on-year (yoy) to RM219.45 mil from RM102.64 mil for the financial year ended December 31, 2020 (FY2020) while its net profit has posted a sharp increase of 25% to RM43.46 mil (FY 2019: RM34.77 mil).
This was despite the negative impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the Malaysian economy that has led to a gross domestic product (GDP) contract by 5.6% in 2020.
The group currently has two core main business – enterprise resource planning (ERP) and IoT.
Under the ERP segment, ARB is involved in designing and re-selling customised ERP solutions that facilitate information flow between all business functions and manage connections to outside stakeholders.
As for the IoT segment, the group is involved in the full turnkey deployment from designing, installation, testing, pre-commissioning and commissioning of various IoT systems and devices as well as integration of automated systems for smart home and smart building.
“We expect to see our ERP and IoT segments continue to drive strong growth for the group,” projected Liew.
“Since the outbreak of the COVID-19, businesses have opted for cloud-computing services as part of the measures to navigate their business operations to adapt to the new norm of working from home.
“Further, we believe the implementation of Industrial Revolution 4.0 will drive both our ERP and IT segment’s growth further,” he added.
At the close of the morning trading session, ARB was down 1 sen or 2.5% to 39 sen with 56.71 million shares traded, thus valuing the company at RM232 mil. – April 21, 2021
