Daily Briefing: oBike's 10 million rides lags rivals; Most BTO flat buyers are first-timers

And here are three companies giving out dividends this week.

From The Motley Fool:

Top Glove (SGX: BVA), which is the world’s largest rubber glove manufacturer, will be going ex-dividend on Wednesday as well.

The firm is giving out 8.5 Malaysia sen per share for the fourth quarter. For the financial year ended 31 August 2017, sales went north to a record-high of RM3.4b, up 18% from the previous year. However, net profit fell 7.7% to RM332.7m.

Top Glove is now selling at $3 per share, giving a trailing PE ratio of around 35 and a yield of 1.5%.

Read more here.

From Tech in Asia:

OBike, a bike-sharing startup founded in Singapore, has just reached 10 million rides since it was founded a year ago. However, the homegrown company is still lagging behind Ofo and Mobike, its far-larger rivals from China.

Ofo, backed by Alibaba, announced in December last year that it saw 32 million rides a day. Meanwhile, Mobike clocked 20 million daily rides as of April 2017 and has Tencent in its corner.

In terms of funding from external investors, both companies have outraised oBike by many multiples, Tech in Asia data shows. Both companies managed this even if the Singaporean startup raised one of the largest series B rounds in Southeast Asia’s history. OBike declined to name its investors, though a “transportation platform” was involved.

Read more here.

From PropertyGuru:

On average, about 80 percent of people buying Build-to-Order (BTO) flats in mature estates from the Housing and Development Board (HDB) are first-timers, according to a written parliamentary reply from the Ministry of National Development on Monday (8 January).

It stated this in reply to a question from Desmond Choo, Member of Parliament (MP) for Tampines Group Representation Constituency (GRC).

Meanwhile, Choo asked whether the Ministry will consider extending the Special Housing Grant (SHG) to first-time buyers, whose parents reside within 2km of their BTO units in mature estates.

Read more here.