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HONG KONG, Feb 25, 2022 - (ACN Newswire) - Pentamaster International Limited ("PIL" or "the Group") which is listed under the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited announced its financial results for the year ended 31 December 2021 today. The Group hit a new record in its 2021 revenue, registering at MYR508.1 million, whilst its net profit stood at MYR116.7 million for the financial year ended 2021; marking an improvement of approximately 21.4% and 2.5% respectively from the corresponding period last year.
The overall performance of the Group recovered commendably in 2021, with growth driven by improved contributions from both the ATE and FAS business segments with each segment accounting for approximately 70.1% and 29.9% of the total Group's revenue, as compared to 2020 of 67.6% and 32.4%, respectively.

ATE segment

With a revenue contribution rate of 70.1%, the ATE segment continued to contribute the larger portion of the Group's overall revenue and profit. After witnessing a decline in revenue last year, total revenue from this segment marked a turnaround and grew at a double-digit rate of 22.6% to MYR358.4 million. During the year, backed by the recovery of the smartphone market and its peripheral items. the electro-optical industry continued to dominate the ATE segment with its revenue contribution rate of approximately 49.7%, derived from abroad
the product portfolio of the Group in its test solutions for the proximity sensor, 3D magnetometer sensor, ambient light sensor, wafer-level VCSEL (Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser) and other relevant applications under optics and photonics sensing solutions.

Owing to the Group's persistent effort in increasing its exposure to the automotive industry, revenue from this sector came in as the second-highest within the ATE segment with its contribution rate of 27.6%. In addition, the automotive sector chalked the highest growth rate at 39.9% among other industry sectors within the ATE segment. This strong demand was largely attributed to the Group's automotive test solutions covering a full range of assembly and test technologies for various aspects of the manufacturing process ranging from the component test, final test to packaging. During the year, the ATE segment was also benefitted from the semiconductor industry with its revenue contribution rate of 20.0%, where this sector captured a 26.8% growth as compared to 2020 from the continuous demand for the Group's test handling equipment which was underpinned by the growth of integrated chips and other related semiconductor contents from the acceleration of digital transformation by the pandemic over the past two years.

The ATE segment will continue to dominate the performance of the Group in the foreseeable future. With the global pandemic unleashing the unprecedented wave of technology developments coupled with the power and momentum of technology convergence, the Group is in a promising position to leverage on these significant opportunities in the ATE segment.

FAS segment

After recording a strong revenue growth in the year 2020, the FAS segment continued to witness a double-digit growth rate in its contribution to the Group's revenue, chalking 12.3% growth to achieve MYR155.3 million during the year. This was mainly driven by the robust demand for the Group's proprietary i-ARMS solutions, where a wider customer base adopted this application across different industry segments in different countries and regions. Notably, this segment gained its revenue momentum in the third and fourth quarters of the year, with revenue in the second half of the year exceeding its first half by approximately 19.5%. The main industry segment that led to FAS growth was the consumer and industrial product segment, contributing approximately 45.4% to overall FAS segment revenue. This was followed by the electro-optical segment and medical device segment with its respective revenue contribution rate of 30.4% and 19.3% where the application of the Group's i-ARMS was equally prevalent in
these segments.

The Group continues to witness huge potential and opportunities in its FAS segment given the fundamental shift towards factory automation and smart manufacturing across various industries, especially in a post-pandemic environment. With the current automation trend, the Group will continue to broaden and enrich the capability of its automated solutions to capture the growth from these developments in the years ahead.

Outlook

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically and fundamentally altered the way we live and work. From social distancing, quarantine, closed borders, travel bans to the buzzword "home office" have never been mandated on such a large scale. The Group, however, navigated the "unsettling" effects of the pandemic and ended the financial year relatively "healed". Such accomplishment has demonstrated the Group's resilience in taking on the undeniable challenges that demand new ways of operating in a post-pandemic business environment and its versatility and speed in emerging strongly owing to the hard work and concerted efforts of the employees of the Group.

As the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining. The pandemic has pushed many companies over the technology tipping point and with the surge in automation, digital adoption has taken a quantum leap across many companies and industries. As a result of these developments, the Group embraces 2022 with increased optimism on the back of a strong order book momentum largely driven by another high growth potential year surrounded by several catalysts brought about by AI, big data analytics, IoT, self-driving cars, Industry 4.0 and the deepening application of 5G. With the electro-optical segment currently dominating the Group's financial performance, this segment will continue its growth momentum in 2022, albeit modestly, given the Group's growing exposure to other industry segments. In respect of the automotive segment, the Group expects to witness the continuous affluence of this segment with e-mobility emerging at an accelerated pace. With electrification playing an important role in the transformation of the transportation industry and thereby presenting major opportunities in all vehicle segments, the global transition specifically towards electric vehicles ("EV") continues to get momentum and creates major disruption in the automotive industry and the related nexus. Significant efforts are witnessed through regulators worldwide defining more stringent emissions t argets which include, among others, the European Union CO2 emissions regulations for cars and vans, China's New Energy Vehicles (NEV) mandate and Biden's administration is introducing a 50% EV target by 2030. Given this context, the Group anticipates a favorable prospect for its automotive test solutions from front-end to back-end which will continue to provide an impetus to the Group's overall performance.

In the belief that there is so much room and business opportunity for further expansion and that now is the best time to be planning for the future, the upcoming new manufacturing plant will pave the way for the Group to deepen its foothold in the medical device segment and bring the growth of its FAS segment to the next level. Key technologies that have been used widely in industrial manufacturing are seen to be filtering into the healthcare sector and with AI conquering the next frontier of the medical segment, the automation opportunity within this horizon is now abundant. With these technology developments presented, the Group is heartened to witness the growing demand for its automated assembly solutions from a broader customer base within the medical device segment on the back of an encouraging booking momentum. Together with the setup of Pentamaster MediQ Sdn. Bhd. for its involvement in the manufacturing of single-use medical devices, the Group is fully prepared for the huge market opportunities in the medical industry. Having continuously witnessed revenue growth from the FAS segment in the past two years, the Group continues to benefit from the increased focus of various industries on industrial automation which is now rapidly necessitated by the effects of the pandemic. As the surge in automation continues in the coming years with the use of AI and IoT in the manufacturing processes, the huge potential and opportunities in the FAS segment will be prevalent. Girded by a year of relatively stable financial performance in 2021, the Group will continue to focus fundamentally on its operational capabilities and remain proactive in the development of new cutting-edge technologies and solutions. With a wide variety of challenges and opportunities confronting 2022, the Group, having the pulse on the global trends and requirements, is forward-looking in building another year of solid business growth. As it is, the virus is here to stay for a period of time and will be a reality in our daily lives. The Group's priority is to ensure the safety of its employees with its strict adherence to the necessary safety measures and operating procedures.

About Pentamaster International Limited

PIL (HKEX stock code: 1665) is a leading global supplier in providing automation technology and solutions to multinational manufacturers mainly in the semiconductor, automotive, electrical & electronics, medical devices and consumer industrial products sectors spanning APAC, North America and Europe. The Group's broad range of integrated automation products and solutions entails innovating, designing, manufacturing and installing automated equipment and/or automated manufacturing solutions.

To learn more about PIL, please visit us at www.pentamaster.com.my.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Email: investor.relation@pentamaster.com.my


Copyright 2022 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. www.acnnewswire.comPentamaster International Limited ("PIL" or "the Group") which is listed under the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited announced its financial results for the year ended 31 December 2021 today.

President Biden said Thursday the United States is imposing new sanctions against Russia, including measures that will "degrade" the country's space program, in response to Russian military attacks on Ukraine. So far, operations and training for future missions on the International Space Station are proceeding without interruption, according to NASA.

Russia’s space program won’t be shielded from sanctions the United States is imposing in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday afternoon.

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Elden Ring is a massive iteration on what FromSoftware began with the Souls series, bringing its relentlessly challenging combat to an incredible open world that gives us the freedom to choose our own path.

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The collector's editions for Destiny 2 expansions include a lot of the usual stuff, like statues and stickers, but the most interesting items included are always their physical lore books. The book inside The Witch Queen Collector's Edition doesn't hit quite as hard as the journal included in the Beyond Light CE (which details how Clovis Bray was almost mind-controlled by the Vex), but it does feature a bunch of interesting tidbits about Ikora Rey, the Darkness, and the Hidden. It also gives us something we've been waiting for: word from Fenchurch.

The lore book in The Witch Queen CE sets the stage for the story of the expansion, though one fascinating entry in particular fits nicely in with the story we've seen unfold in the Season of the Lost. That season was all about Mara Sov, the Awoken queen, who has been missing in action since all the way back during the Forsaken expansion. Mara has been around, though, even if we didn't know the full details of her exploits. In fact, the CE lore book tells us that in the period between Forsaken and the Shadowkeep expansion, she was hanging out with Eris Morn. She might also have destroyed one of the Darkness' Pyramid ships.

Within the Witch Queen CE lore book is a report from Fenchurch Everis, who most players will know from a voice line delivered by Tower cosmetics merchant Tess Everis at the Eververse kiosk: "No word from Fenchurch today. He must have found something interesting." Canonically, Fenchurch is the guy who finds all the weird artifacts Tess sells in the Eververse Store, but he also has a story role with the Vanguard, serving as one of the Hidden, Ikora's secret group of Guardian spies. The entry in the Witch Queen CE is one of his reports to Ikora, which actually completely explains another of his previous reports--one that was among the spookiest recent lore entries in the game.

That lore entry is called "Fragment," and it appeared way back during the Season of the Drifter in 2019. In it, Fenchurch submits a report about a day when he was patrolling on the moon with some other Guardians, before he suddenly was overwhelmed by a splitting headache. He went to lie down, but instead instantly fell asleep and had a strange dream. The lore entry mentions specific people in the dream, but Fenchurch uses Hidden codes that obscured who the main participants are. One is definitely Eris, but the other--VIP #0704--was unknown until now.

In his dream, Fenchurch saw Eris and tried to catch up to her in a crowd, but couldn't. He woke up a few moments later to find a Hive thrall standing there, looking at him and not moving. Fenchurch blasted the thrall and found a weird piece of black material, the fragment the entry is named for, sticking out of its chest. Fenchurch's Ghost, Neville, tried to scan the fragment but had a hard time doing so. Eventually, Fenchurch touched it with his hand and had a sudden vision.

The vision showed Eris and VIP #0704 together in a field of black debris, apparently that of a destroyed ship, with #0704 dressing a big gash in Eris' thigh. Before the vision ended, Eris turned and said something to Fenchurch in Russian, which roughly translates to "pathetic" in English. (We never do find out what this Russian part is all about.)

Eris was missing for a long time between The Taken King expansion and her return in Shadowkeep.

The CE lore entry has Fenchurch offering a new report on the vision, the weird thrall, and the black item he found stuck in its chest, after talking to Eris and convincing her to tell him what the hell was going on. Eris explains that Fenchurch's vision was an event that actually happened, and that she sent the thrall to find a Guardian in order to make a report in case she and VIP #0704 died doing whatever they were doing.

There's a whole lot more to the situation we learn from the new report, though. First and foremost, we can pick up that VIP #0704 is, in fact, Mara Sov.

Fenchurch reports what Eris tells him: Between the Forsaken expansion and the Shadowkeep expansion, Mara consulted VIP #0101 (who we soon figure out is Elsie Bray, the Exo Stranger) about the approaching Pyramid ships. (As an aside, assigning #0101 to Elsie has to be a Terminator joke: T-101 was the designation for Arnold Schwarzennegger's killer robot in a movie about time-traveling robots, and Elsie is a time-traveling robot.) We saw during Forsaken that Mara was aware of the Darkness' Black Fleet before just about anybody else--she's been making plans to deal with it since the original Destiny.

Using a combination of Elsie's future tech from other timelines and some time traveler insights, as well as the Warmind artificial intelligence Rasputin and the AI Failsafe from the Exodus Black, Mara was able to pinpoint one of the Pyramid ships within the solar system long before the rest of the ships showed up during the Season of Arrivals, and before the one on the moon was discovered in Shadowkeep. This one was in orbit around a dwarf planet called 136199 Eris, a body that exists in the solar system (in the real world as well as the game) but which is pretty distant. Together, Mara and Eris made for 136199 Eris to see what the deal was with the Pyramid ship.

The Pyramid ship on the moon was there before the rest of the Black Fleet arrived in the Season of Arrivals, and apparently it wasn't the only one.

What happened next isn't super clear. Apparently, after discovering the ship, the pair moved closer to investigate. Fenchurch doesn't know exactly what happened after that. Apparently, Mara left the ship to get closer to the Pyramid, and then even abandoned her spacesuit--which sounds very similar to the origin story for Mara described in the lore book Marasenna. Fenchurch isn't sure, but he believes Mara either interacted with or even entered the Pyramid ship; he also doesn't know if Mara was able to affect the Pyramid at all, or if the debris field he saw in his vision was actually the result of Mara destroying the Pyramid ship. What he does know, however, is that whatever happened caused Mara to die.

Death isn't the end for Mara, however. Like Hive gods Savathun, Oryx, and Xivu Arath, Mara has managed to use the power of the Dreaming City and her Techeun witches to create a "throne world" on the Ascendant Plane--in fact, if you've ventured into the Shattered Throne dungeon in the Dreaming City, you've seen it. A person or entity with a throne world can be killed in the material world, but they survive in the Ascendant Plane, which essentially renders them immortal. That's why, during the Taken King expansion, Guardians had to kill Oryx in his throne world in the King's Fall raid--if they didn't, Oryx wouldn't stay dead.

The throne world is how Mara survived her apparent death during The Taken King, when the Awoken fleet attacked and disabled Oryx's Dreadnaught. And she survived her death here, too, by zapping back to her throne world. At this point, though, Savathun and her daughter, Dul Incaru, had taken up residence there, as we see in the Shattered Throne dungeon. Eris used her weird Hive powers to pull Mara back from the throne world, but to do that, the two of them had to fight Dul Incaru and Savathun.

Fenchurch says that Eris and Mara made it through that battle and wound up on the surface of 136199 Eris. However, the fight was a hard one, and Eris was injured--when Fenchurch saw Mara treating Eris' wound amid the debris on a frozen planet, this is why. We still don't know what all that debris actually is, though.

Mara sacrificed herself against Oryx during the Battle of Saturn, but thanks to her throne world, she can't die.

Before this, the relationship between Mara and Eris, who worked for the Awoken queen for years, was a strained one, presumably because of the trauma Mara suffered during the battle with Oryx in The Taken King and her death afterward. Mara sacrificed a lot for Eris' plan to take down Oryx, including a huge number of the Awoken people, and in the end, her brother, Uldren Sov. But after the fight with Dul Incaru and Savathun, and faced with the prospect they might die, Mara and Eris managed to reconcile. That point is important for a couple reasons: First, Mara and Eris are both a big part of the story of The Witch Queen; and second--according to Elsie Bray in the dark timeline she seeks to prevent--Eris is eventually corrupted by the Darkness and becomes a bigger threat than even Savathun. The Dark Future lore book says that in that timeline, Eris eventually helps the Darkness defeat the Traveler and the Light, and is even responsible for Mara's death.

Back on the dwarf planet, Eris was worried she might not survive the ordeal; though she's a former Guardian, she has no Ghost, and is therefore mortal. Fenchurch says that Eris used some Hive magic to zap a report onto a piece of the black metal in the debris field and then transported it to the moon, along with the compulsion for a "lesser Hive" to bring that report to the nearest Guardian, which is how the thrall came to Fenchurch and the reason he saw the vision.

The report ends with Fenchurch frustrated that Eris' explanation of the vision he saw leaves even more questions, specifically about what Mara did to the Pyramid ship in orbit around 136199 Eris. Was she able to destroy it, and if so, how? Can she do it again, and if not, why not?

In her response, Ikora notes that, like Savathun, Mara is moving pieces around a chessboard and she keeps secrets for a greater purpose. She also suggests that Mara might be trying to come to terms with the fact that she won't be able to control events as much as she wants.

Mara squared off with Savathun and was beaten in the Season of the Lost, but the two queens are still locked in a battle of wits.

"I believe Mara has begun to consider that she may not be the prime executor of her own endgame," Ikora writes to Fenchurch. "She may be just one component of the bomb--the payload or timing device. At the end of her own journey, she is necessary but not sufficient. She can no longer fight alone."

It seems Mara has a big role in the story to come, as we saw set up in Forsaken and lately in the Season of the Lost. Destiny 2's story lately has been pushing the idea that the way to defeat the threat of the Darkness is through alliances, and this lore entry gives a sense that we'll need to continue to strengthen our relationship with Mara Sov. It also hints at more of what Mara might have up her sleeve--she's seen a whole lot of things we have no idea about, and I have a feeling we're going to see her take on the Darkness directly before too long.

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Long the busiest space launch complex in the United States, Cape Canaveral and Kennedy extended their combined five-year streak as the busiest commercial, civil and military launch range in the world.

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