Garment maker Makalot Industrial Co (聚陽實業) expects revenue to rebound this month on improving customer demand, which would end 15 consecutive months of decline, it said yesterday.

“We expect both revenue and earnings in the third quarter to improve from the same period last year,” president and chairman Frank Chou (周理平) told reporters on the sidelines of an annual shareholders’ meeting. “We added seven new brand clients last year, who will start to make a significant contribution to revenue in the second half [of the year].”

The company said it anticipates securing orders from five new customers by the end of this year.

Taipei-headquartered Makalot announced in February that it planned to spend between US$5 million and US$10 million this year on expanding capacity by adding new equipment at its Vietnamese and Indonesian plants.

The new equipment would help lift the firm’s overall annual capacity to 13 million units of clothes this year from last year’s 12.1 million units, the company said yesterday.

Chou said that the company is assessing the possibility of building new plants in Ethiopia or Kenya, given the cheaper labor costs in Africa.

Shareholders yesterday approved a company proposal to pay a cash dividend of NT$6.72 per share, based on last year’s net profit of NT$1.52 billion (US$50.06 million), or NT$7.39 per share. That translates into a dividend yield of 4.8 percent, based on the company’s closing price, which edged up 0.36 percent to close at NT$140 yesterday.

Makalot last year saw its net profit plunge 29.5 percent annually, with revenues down 5.3 percent to NT$22.13 billion a year ago, company data showed.

It primarily attributed last year’s performance to slowing demand in the global garment industry and the sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar.

It reported a 8.37 percent year-on-year decline in revenue at NT$1.31 billion last month, smaller than the annual reduction of 8.76 percent in April, the company said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing.