Prudential Corporation Asia also produced record new business profit across the region of £547m, up 18% from £465m. The four largest markets of Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia collectively grew new business profit by 20%, with notably strong growth in Indonesia, up 49% and Malaysia, by 27%.
Indonesia is Prudential’s largest market with an agency force of more than 180,000 and an emerging bancassurance channel, and it noted that “we continue to see rapid growth in some of our smaller markets. New business sales in Thailand were up 73% and in the Philippines up by 50%.
It added: “Asia continues to be the most significant profitable growth opportunity for the group with a rapidly expanding middle class who have a strong demand for savings and protection products. The seven South-east Asia markets that make up our ‘sweet spot’ have a combined population of more than 500 million and total GDP of more than US$2trn, equivalent to that of a G5 economy. We are well positioned to capture this profitable growth opportunity."
Health and protection products contributed 32% of APE sales in the period, and 93% of APE sales came from regular premium business.
Tidjane Thiam, Prudential group chief executive, said:"We manage our business so that it is resilient in times of economic and financial market stress, and our track record through the crisis is evidence of this. Our balance sheet remains defensively positioned and we continue to capitalise on the long-term growth opportunities available to us.
"Those opportunities are most evident in South-east Asia, where the depth and breadth of Prudential’s franchise is a source of strength. Long-term savings and protection businesses such as ours are playing an integral role in the economic and social transformation that has only just started to take place, and will deliver growth for many years to come, long after the current worries that beset the global economy have passed.”
Prudential’s statement also referred to recently receiving in principle a licence to operate in Cambodia, “an economy which has delivered GDP growth at a CAGR of 11% over the past ten years and where there are excellent opportunities to establish and develop a fast growing and profitable life insurance industry.”
On the UK business front, it was M&G asset management that stood out with net inflows of £4.9bn
