{"text":[[{"start":7.03,"text":"It’s not often that a company’s announcement that it fell into the red has the result of lifting its shares. But that’s exactly what happened with small kitchen appliance maker JS Global Lifestyle Co. Ltd. (1691.HK), whose announcement last week warned of just such swing into the loss column for 2025."}],[{"start":30.28,"text":"JS Global said it expected to record a loss of up to $22.5 million for 2025, reversing an $8.8 million profit the previous year. But it also said its adjusted net profit last year more than quadrupled to $29 million from $7.1 million in 2024. Such adjusted figures typically exclude non-cash items like stock-based employee compensation to give investors a better idea of how a company’s core operations are performing."}],[{"start":66.83,"text":"Investors were clearly focused on the adjusted figure when they bid up JS Global’s shares by 4.6% the day after the announcement, which showed the company was on track with a recent buildup of its business in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. The company blamed its swing to the red on losses related to restricted share awards and a decrease in income from SharkNinja (SN.US), a former subsidiary that was spun off in 2023 and now operates independently."}],[{"start":99.27,"text":"Beneath those headline profit figures, investors were also applauding the company for a quiet overhaul of its revenue structure that is shifting to focus on higher-margin direct sales in Asia away from less profitable sales to SharkNinja."}],[{"start":115.91,"text":"In 1994, JS Global Chairman Wang Xuning invented one of the first new appliances in decades to take Asian kitchens by storm since the rice cooker. That device was a soymilk maker that grinds soybeans and boils the grains to produce fresh soymilk. It rose to become the top-ranking multifunctional blender in China by 2018, with 37% of the market."}],[{"start":143.65,"text":"The device became the foundation for his first company, Joyoung (002242.SZ), which listed on China’s domestic Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2008. Joyoung bought U.S.-based home appliance seller SharkNinja in 2017, then went public in Hong Kong as JS Global in 2019. By that time, the company was China’s third-biggest seller of small kitchen appliances and the world’s sixth largest, according to its Hong Kong prospectus."}],[{"start":178.99,"text":"Wang went on to spin off SharkNinja and list it on the New York Stock Exchange in 2023, retaining control as chairman and through his 38.6% ownership of the unit."}],[{"start":192.52,"text":"In addition to its signature soymilk maker, JS Global’s other products include blenders, coffee makers, air fryers, pressure cookers, water purifiers, rice cookers and vacuum cleaners. SharkNinja has a similar catalog."}],[{"start":209.45000000000002,"text":"After the spinoff, JS Global retained rights to the SharkNinja brand in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as its original Joyoung brand. Meantime, SharkNinja, originally founded in Montreal and based in Massachusetts since 2003, retained rights to its brand in the rest of the world and agreed to keep using Joyoung’s manufacturing network to supply some of its products for the next three years."}],[{"start":237.04000000000002,"text":"Dwindling supplier relationship"}],[{"start":241.82000000000002,"text":"As that three-year period wraps up, SharkNinja appears to be drawing down its reliance on JS Global as a manufacturing partner. The U.S. company’s reports show its purchasing of goods from JS Global dropped from $1 billion in 2023 to just $89.6 million last year, which was a factor behind JS Global’s net loss last year."}],[{"start":267.66,"text":"JS Global’s latest financial report shows its revenue rose by just 4.2% in the first half of last year to $774 million from $743 million a year earlier, as it plunged into the red with a net loss of $59.2 million. A big factor behind the weak revenue gain was a steep drop in the contribution from related parties, mainly SharkNinja, which fell by more than half to just $53.9 million in the first half of 2025 from $132.7 million a year earlier."}],[{"start":309.25,"text":"While painful on its income statements, the loss of revenue from SharkNinja may be less important for JS Global’s overall financial health as it steams ahead full-throttle with its own Asia-Pacific (APAC) strategy. Its sales in the region, excluding China, grew by 86.9% to $230 million in the first half of last year from $123 million a year earlier through its Singapore-based SharkNinja APAC business segment."}],[{"start":341.38,"text":"That strong growth lifted the APAC segment from 16.6% of JS Global’s sales to nearly 30% over the 12 months through last June. Within the APAC region, the Australia-New Zealand market more than doubled to $96.3 million in the first half of last year from $44.6 million the previous year, making it JS Global’s largest market outside China. Japan was also a strong performer, with revenue up 50.8% year-on-year to $65.9 million."}],[{"start":383.12,"text":"The story was less upbeat in its home China market, where JS Global’s sales through its Joyoung segment were roughly flat in the first half of last year at $490 million."}],[{"start":396.91,"text":"Meanwhile, the newly independent SharkNinja has also been expanding into new markets, helping to lift its revenue 15.7% last year to $6.4 billion, while its net income increased by 60% to $701 million. On its earnings call, SharkNinja CEO Mark Adam Barrocas noted that the company is now able to import 100% of its U.S. products from outside China, helping to avoid uncertainty related to U.S. tariffs. The U.S.-listed company has been developing new markets in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America."}],[{"start":440.56,"text":"So, what does all this mean for JS Global? In 2022, the company’s international revenue accounted for nearly three-quarters of its total, meaning it would lose that income source while retaining its China footprint and some sourcing revenue from SharkNinja. Now, the company is showing it plans to become an Asian powerhouse, and is rapidly weaning itself from the lower-margin business of selling products to SharkNinja."}],[{"start":469.24,"text":"Still, that transition is very much a work in progress, which may be why only three analysts on Yahoo Finance follow the company compared with 13 for SharkNinja. Similarly, investors have given JS Global a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of just 0.47, compared with 2.81 for SharkNinja."}],[{"start":492.49,"text":"But at least from a longer-term perspective, Chairman Wang seems to have made the right decision to split his empire in two. That move has made it easier to navigate geopolitics, and has pushed both companies to restructure their supply chains and split their focus between the APAC region for JS Global, and the rest of the world for SharkNinja."}],[{"start":523.37,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1773111669_4915.mp3"}