Rising leather prices can't dampen Stella's optimism
Press in Indonesia have reported that high-end footwear manufacturer Stella International is to set up a factory in the Freeport Area of Bataan that will create an initial 5,000 jobs.
The Taiwanese company supplies shoes to major brands including Clarks, Deckers, ECCO, Rockport, Timberland and Wolverine and is planning to increase the workforce at the new site to 10,000 when it is up and running, according to Bataan’s mayor, Jose Enrique Garcia III.
Last week the group revealed revenue for the six months to the end of June rose 3.6% to $722.6 million, while gross profit across declined 6.1% to $154.6 million. Shipment volumes fell 0.4% to 23.7 million pairs, while the average selling price of footwear rose 5.6% to $28.4 per pair, primarily due to the rising cost of leather.
Stella’s CEO, Lawrence Chen, said: “Improving economic conditions in our primary export markets has started to be reflected in our financial performance and we were pleased to witness a pick-up in customer orders towards the end of the interim period. Some risks remain however and we are continuing to maintain ongoing measures to strengthen our cost-controls and further improve the quality of our products.”
