This is the most impressive thing about Venture's 1Q earnings result

This segment recorded a 24.2% jump.

Venture's first quarter profits result provide some cheer in an otherwise lukewarm year for Singapore's manufacturing sector. While all five segments grew y-o-y, Venture's Test and Measurement/Medical/Others was the most impressive, growing 24.2% y-o-y or SGD182.4m, due to a lower base and better-than-expected Agilent (A US, NR) demand, says OSK-DMG.

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The other two high-growth segments were Printing and Imaging, growing to SGD70.3m (+10.4% y-o-y) as Hewlett-Packard’s (HPQ US, NR) demand picked up from the trough, and Networking and Communications, growing to SGD94.1m (+8.9% y-o-y).

For the other segments, Retail Store Solutions & Industrial Products rose to SGD178.8m (+5.5% y-o-y) while Computer Peripherals & Data Storage grew modestly to SGD65.4m (+1.9% y-o-y). Overall group revenue grew to SGD591.0m (+11.4%).

Effective tax rate increase. With the change in tax regime by the Economic Development Board, tax is now granted at the product level rather than entity level. Management is fighting to maintain its historical effective tax treatment of around 6% by qualifying more products. Nonetheless, we still estimate that tax rates will gradually pick up.

Reiterate lukewarm growth. During 1Q14, management sees generally positive business sentiment from its customers and expects growing revenue contributions. However, they remain cautious whether this sentiment is sustainable.

This is in line with our view for a lukewarm year, given that Singapore March’s NODX fell 6.6% y-o-y with electronics exports falling by 16.1%. We reiterate our NEUTRAL call for this counter, as we expect bottomline growth for the year to remain in single-digits.

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