Wilcon Depot books P409M in January-March period

WILCON DEPOT, Inc. posted 5% earnings growth for the first quarter of 2018, following higher sales from its depot format stores during the period.

In a statement issued Tuesday, Wilcon said it booked P409-million net income during the three-month period. Net sales of the company improved by 12.5% to P4.71 billion, which the company said was achieved despite a higher base in 2017 and less number of operating days during the January to March period.

Majority of the company’s sales came from its depot format stores at P4.56 billion, while the smaller home essentials format provided P147 million.

“Wilcon is on track to achieve its 2018 net sales target of mid to high teens and has already breached its product mix target of 46% net sales contribution from its higher margin products. We expect to sustain this momentum until the end of the year as we push for the timely opening of new stores and continued marketing efforts to boost comparable sales growth,” Wilcon Chief Finance Officer Mark Andrew Y. Belo said in a statement.

Comparable sales from old stores went up by 5.3%, with the old locations generating P4.40 billion of the total revenue. New stores, or those that have been operating for less than a year, contributed P303 million.

Wilcon expects to see better contribution with the opening of 11 new stores this year. Since January, the company has already opened two new depots and one home essential format, placing it on track to open seven more depots and one-mall based store which are already in various stages of construction.

“Barring any unexpected external factors, we should be able to open the 11 stores planned for this year, which together with the stores opened in 2017, should help in the recovery of store expansion-related front-loaded costs for us to realize our projected mid-teens net income growth,” Mr. Belo said. —