This story is part of Forbes’ coverage of Asia’s Best Under A Billion 2023, which highlights 200 Asia-Pacific public companies with less than $1 billion in revenue and consistent top- and bottom-line growth. See the full list, sorted alphabetically, here.
This year’s annual Best Under A Billion list recognizes 200 small and midsized publicly traded companies in the region that outperformed despite stiff global headwinds like inflation and rising funding costs. The standouts are concentrated in chipmaking and related industries. Demand for semiconductors, found in everyday items like smartphones, appliances and cars, skyrocketed in the past three years with the accelerating adoption of AI technologies—although the market is expected to soften somewhat this year as supply constraints ease. Other top performers on our list include companies delivering IT solutions that underpin the digital transformation of healthcare, logistics and manufacturing, and other industries. Meanwhile, businesses that rely on consumer spending, such as restaurants, entertainment and sports, continued to see an uptick in sales as Covid-19 restrictions faded away. This year’s list includes 58 returnees from the previous year.
We’ve highlighted eight companies from the list that have benefited from the global spike in demand for semiconductors.
Chroma Ate
Revenue at the Taoyuan, Taiwan-based precision testing systems company grew 25% last year to a record $740 million, driven by sales to makers of semiconductors and EV batteries. Semiconductor services, the main contributor to top-line growth last year, has slowed, though Chroma Ate sees demand from the EV industry staying robust in 2023.
Frontken
The Petaling Jaya, Malaysia-based company provides precision cleaning for semiconductors as well as engineering services to the oil-and-gas and marine industries. Revenue grew 15% in 2022 to a record $118 million, with the semiconductor business contributing over three-quarters of total sales.
KPIT Technologies
In March, KPIT Technologies signed an agreement with Japanese automaker Honda to develop software for next-generation systems for vehicles, following a similar deal last November with Renault. In 2022, the automotive software-solutions provider saw net profit soar on a 38% jump in revenue to $419 million.
Pro Medicus
Richmond, Australia-based Pro Medicus provides medical imaging software and services to hospitals, imaging centers and healthcare groups worldwide. It continued to post strong earnings growth in the first half ended December, after a 37% rise in revenue to $68 million in the 2022 financial year amid strong business growth in North America.
Shift
Shift has seen earnings soar on solid demand for its third-party software testing and quality assurance services. In the last financial year, revenue rose 41% to $533 million and profit soared 76% to $41 million. The Tokyo-based company expects double-digit growth in 2023.
Systems Ltd.
The Lahore-based business software company saw revenue doubling to $37 million in the first three months of this year. That follows a doubling in sales growth to $155 million in 2022. Systems attributes the surge to ongoing digital transformation in the public and private sectors.
Thai Optical Group
The Bangkok-based maker of corrective lenses posted a 30% rise in net income to $12 million, on $83 million in revenue, following a post-pandemic recovery in sales. Most of Thai Optical Group’s revenue came from overseas, with Australia and New Zealand as the biggest contributors, followed by Europe.
UMS Holdings
Global sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment reached a record $109 billion last year as chipmakers continued to add capacity. That strong demand boosted Singapore-based UMS Holdings’ net profit by 77% to $71 million, making 2022 the chip-equipment maker’s most profitable yet. UMS is set to open a new factory in Penang, Malaysia, this year.
Methodology
This list is meant to identify companies with long-term sustainable performance across a variety of metrics. From a universe of over 20,000 publicly traded companies in the Asia-Pacific region with annual sales above $10 million and below $1 billion, these 200 companies were selected. The companies on this list, which is unranked, were selected based on a composite score that incorporated their overall track record in measures such as debt, sales and earnings-per-share growth over both the most recent fiscal one- and three-year periods, and the strongest one- and five-year average returns on equity. Aside from quantitative criteria, qualitative screens were used as well, such as excluding companies with serious governance issues, questionable accounting, environmental concerns, management issues or legal troubles. State-controlled and subsidiaries of larger companies were also excluded. The criteria also ensured a geographic diversity of companies from across the region. The list uses full-year annual results, based on the latest publicly available figures as of July 22, 2023.
Assistant editors Yessar Rosendar and Yue Wang
With reporting by Vaishalli Chandra, Kyunghee Park, Phisanu Phromchanya, John Kang, James Simms and Cat Thomas.
Read the full article here