AEON Q3 earnings come in at Rm7.3mil
PETALING JAYA: AEON Co (M) Bhd reported a net profit of Rm7.3mil or 0.52 sen per share for its third quarter ended Sept 30, compared with a net profit of Rm13.9mil or 0.99 sen per share for the same period a year earlier.
Revenue for the quarter also came in lower, albeit marginally, at Rm1.062bil against an earlier Rm1.065bil for the same period last year.
In notes accompanying its results, the retailer said its retail business segment revenue registered Rm888.6mil, lower by 0.8%, mainly due to the temporary closure of stores for renovation in this quarter and downsizing of a store at the end of the previous year.
“The profit before tax for the quarter under review was Rm13.9mil and was lower by Rm9.4mil compared to the previous year corresponding quarter mainly due to MFRS 16 impact,” AEON said.
“However, after adjusting for the adoption of MFRS 16 and amendments to MFRS 123 impacts, profit before tax for the current quarter recorded was at Rm20.4mil which is still a decrease of 12.6% compared to the preceding year corresponding quarter of Rm23.4mil.
“The lower profit before tax was mainly due to higher expenses especially utilities and rental as compared to revenue growth,” the company said.
For the nine months to Sept 30, AEON made a higher net profit of Rm59.4mil compared with a net profit of Rm51.6mil earlier.
Revenue was also higher at Rm3.37bil against Rm3.24bil earlier mainly due to contributions from newly renovated stores and newly opened specialty stores in this reporting period as well as new stores which were opened in April 2018 and January 2019.
AEON said for its retail business, the company will continue to refurbish its selected stores and employ appropriate marketing and pricing strategies, merchandise assortment reformation, maintaining quality customer service and operational efficiency efforts to ensure that its core businesses will remain resilient.
For its property management services, the company said it expects the occupancy rate and rental rates to remain challenging and will continue to leverage on its competitive strengths to draw customer traffic to its malls so as to continue ensure its position as a shopping destination.