KUALA LUMPUR (May 13): Vivocom International Holdings Bhd dropped 2.78%, falling in line with the sudden fall in Bursa Malaysia, which slumped 24.38 points to 1,624.6 points in early trade.

The stock, which has gained 27.27% year-to-date, dipped one sen to 35 sen with 95.2 million shares done for a market capitalisation of RM931.4 million. Over the week, it has been the top active counter.

Its sudden dip in share price surprised CIMB IB Bhd analyst Marcus Chan who expected Vivocom to continue its uptrend, following its outstanding first quarter ended March 31, 2016 (1QFY16) results.

He opined it could be a result of the overall Malaysian stock market’s performance that has taken a hit with banking and oil and gas related shares falling.

“I am surprised, because I expected it to do well today, because of their outstanding earnings. I believe Vivocom would do better next week, as it expects a RM700 million contract coming up. It should recover,” he told theedgemarkets.com

In a note today, Chan said CIMB raised Vivocom’s earnings per share by 31% to impute higher gross margin, given its strong 1QFY16 results.

Target price was raised to 78 sen, with an unchanged “add” call, he said.

Yesterday (May 12), Vivocom posted a 27 times higher net profit for 1QFY16 at RM25.12 million, from RM923,000 a year ago, driven by the group’s construction business.

Earnings per share rose to 0.81 sen, from 0.09 sen last year.

Its revenue for 1QFY16 also rocketed 20 times to RM141.54 million, from RM7.04 million.

Vivocom said the construction segment contributed 88.9% or 125.81 million to the group’s total revenue under the quarter under review, while its manufacturing division contributed 5.7%, with the remaining 5.4% coming from its telecommunication towers business.