Wealth investment manager AXA Asia Pacific Holdings Ltd (ASX: AXA) revealed on Thursday that its Hong Kong operations were experiencing accelerating growth, with regional sales soaring by more than 50 percent during the first half of the year.

Company chief executive Andrew Penn said in Melbourne that the company's Hong Kong unit sales jumped by 20 percent in the first half of calendar 2010 while its adviser numbers surged by up to seven percent.

Mr Penn said that regional expansion roared past to 52 percent during the same calendar year as the new figures were made known in the wake of AXA-APH's publication yesterday of the company's unaudited first-half earnings results which showed that its net profit dipped to $220 million from the $270.4 million posted from the same corresponding period last year.

The company attributed the decline to its Hong Kong unit's retreating operating earnings which should reach a total of $140 million as compared to the $175.8 million posted last year.

AXA-APH added that a rise in the Australian dollar was the major contributor of the fall as the currency's increased value effectively slashed the Hong Kong unit's dollar earnings of up to $37 million.

Also, Mr Penn said that the negative investment experience of $60 million was largely caused by the 10 percent slide of the Australian Securities Exchange that marred the business operations in the first half of 2010.