SADAFCO announces steady growth in tough market
Saudia Dairy and Foodstuff Company (SADAFCO) has managed to deliver healthy net margins in Q1 2017 despite the overall market conditions.
The growth was consistent with the previous quarter (Q4 2016) and the same period last year (Q1 2016).
Despite the increase in material input costs, SADAFCO achieved a net profit of SR77 million ($20.5 million) in Q1 2017, which represents an increase of 5.3 percent compared to the previous quarter (Q4 2016). Total sales rose to SR452.8 million during the first quarter, an increase of 1.2 percent from Q4 2016, but a drop of 4.8 percent from the same period last year (Q1 2016).
“It is encouraging to achieve consistent profitability, irrespective of the market conditions,” said Wout Matthijs, chief executive of SADAFCO. “Sales have slightly declined due to the holiday season and the slowdown in the consumption pattern; however, we are confident that our key products will continue to strengthen their market share.”
He said: “Despite experiencing challenging market conditions, we are maintaining strong working capital ratios, healthy cash balance of SR505 million with zero leveraging and were able to significantly increase the shareholder equity YOY by 15.5 percent, (SR1.208 billion compared to SR1.046 billion from the same period last year).”
Matthijs added: “Our conscious efforts toward cost and credit control, and delivery of efficient customer service will enable us to produce consistent results in the upcoming quarters. We continue to be confident in the company’s long-term growth prospects and are aware that we still have a lot of opportunity to improve our operations and deliver the outstanding experience expected by our customers.”
Established in 1976, SADAFCO is a leader in dairy and foodstuff manufacturing, importing, distributing and marketing in Saudi Arabia and the GCC region.