|
By Chino S. Leyco, Reporter
HIGH inflation bit into the first-half profit of
the Philippines’ largest fast-food chain.
In a statement, Tony Tan Caktiong, Jollibee
Foods Corp. (JFC) chairman and chief executive said net income fell
15 percent to P1.125 billion at end-June from P1.324 billion last
year, as the company’s operating income declined by 9.5 percent to
P1.55 billion.
The company said the lower operating income was
due to higher raw material costs and operating expenses.
Revenues, however, were resilient, rising 12.4
percent to P20.827 billion from P18.525 billion last year.
Tan Caktiong said the business performed
strongly despite the high inflation rate and a slowing economy.
“Our same stores remained strong, both in the
Philippines and abroad. While our profit was lower compared to last
year due to rapidly increasing costs, we believe that eventually,
our profits will also grow as JFC had done in previous years of high
inflation rate and slowing economic growth,” he said.
The group’s system-wide sales grew by 8
percent in the first quarter of the year compared with the second
quarter of last year, with local sales slower at 7.9 percent
compared with the 9.5 percent in its foreign operations.
Excluding the effect of changes in foreign
currency exchange rates, the group’s system wide sales from
foreign operations grew by 17.1 percent.
“Some store sales from our two biggest foreign
businesses, China and the United States particularly Yonghe King in
the [People’s Republic of China] and Jollibee US continued to be
quite robust. We have accelerated the expansion of the store network
of these business units, with plans to open a significant higher
number of stores this year than in any previous year,” Tan
Caktiong said.
Ysmael Baysa, JFC chief finance officer said
gross profit as a percent of revenues in the second quarter
decreased by 1.3 percentage points from last year, while operating
expenses as a percentage of revenues expanded by 0.50 percent,
highlighting the rapid increase in raw material, energy and wage
costs. He, however, said overall profitability had improved in the
second quarter compared with the first quarter.
“While our efforts on cost improvement and
price adjustments were not yet sufficient to fully recover our
profitability, gross profit as a percent of revenues had improved
from 51.4 percent in the first quarter of the year to 52.5 percent
in the second quarter,” he said.
The fast-food chain operator has earmarked P4.4
billion this year for capital expenditures, primarily for the
opening of new stores and renovation of its existing restaurants.
This year, it has opened a total of 72
stores—39 in the Philippines and 33 abroad.
JFC owns and operates Jollibee, Chowking,
Greenwich, Red Ribbon, Delifrance and Manong Pepe’s brands in the
Philippines and abroad.
It also operates Chinese-restaurant chain Yonghe
King which brings its total number of stores to 1,689.
|
