Jollibee profit growth accelerates

Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC), the largest Asian food service company, reported that its attributable net income for the first nine months rose 16.3 percent to R5.11 billion from R4.39 billion in the same period last year as earnings growth accelerated in the third quarter.

System-wide sales, a measure of all sales to consumers both from company-owned and franchised stores, hiked 14.5 percent to R123.38 billion from R107.77 billion in the same period of 2016 while revenues gained 15 percent to R94.51 billion from R82.19 billion.

For the third quarter alone, system wide sales jumped 16.5 percent while revenues grew by 17.7 percent. Operating income and attributable net income grew faster at 27.2 percent and 21.1 percent, respectively.

Sales of the Philippine business in the third-quarter grew by 13.3 percent driven by the acceleration of store network expansion and continued strong same store sales growth.

On the other hand, sales of the foreign business grew by 24.4 percent (excluding divestments and acquisition) with Southeast Asia (ex-Philippines) growing by 39.1 percent, China 23.4 percent, North America 22.2 percent and the Middle East 21.4 percent.

Including divestments and acquisition, sales of the foreign business grew by 28.1 percent. The strong worldwide sales growth for the quarter was driven by same store sales increase of 6 percent to 7 percent, store expansion of 7.5 percent and 2 percent impact of currency exchange rate changes.

“The organization opened 265 new stores in the first nine months of the year compared with 201 in the sameperiod last year, a 32 percent improvement,” JFC Chief Executive Officer Ernesto Tanmantiong.

He added that, “in the Philippines, store expansion grew at 8.2 percent – the highest organic store growth inat least the past five years while same store sales growth remained strong.”

Abroad, Tanmantiong said many of the company’s brands are performing at double digits while profit continued to rise significantly.

JFC Chief Financial Officer Ysmael V. Baysa said “all business regions: Philippines, China, United States and Southeast Asia and the Middle East delivered strong profitgrowth in the third quarter and in the first nine months of 2017 versus the same period last year.”

“In the Philippines, slight price adjustments and slower growth of overheads accelerated profit growth versus previous quarters. Abroad, very strong same storesales growth significantly improved store profit margins and return on investments,” Baysa added.