Health crisis slashed income of Robinsons Retail in 2020

Robinsons Retail Holdings inc. (RRHI) said its income dropped 30 percent last year to P3.19 billion from the previous year’s P4.55 billion.

Net sales fell 7 percent to P151.02 billion from the previous year’s P162.91 billion despite its push for ecommerce as the strong performance of its supermarkets were weighed down by its non-essential formats.

The sales data includes the two months’ results of Rose Pharmacy, a leading chain in the Visayas, which was acquired in October.

“2020 was a year of difficulties for many businesses. Covid-19 might be considered a first in our lifetime, yet we remained resilient and focused on providing the best products and services to our customers,” Robina Gokongwei-pe, the company’s president and CEO, said.

“I want to thank our partners, suppliers and employees for doing their best to ensure that our customers have access to their needs during these trying times. We remain steadfast in our commitment in 2021, confident that we can drive sustainable growth for all of our stakeholders.”

Blended same store sales growth (SSSG) was at -8.9 percent for full year 2020 mainly due to the performance of the non-essential formats which were closed for 8 weeks in 2020.

The SSSG of the supermarket segment was strong at 7.7 percent, but its drugstores segment ended flat, as sales of prescription drugs slowed down in the second half of the year with less people visiting hospitals.

Sales of its department store, doit-yourself and convenience store segments were all down in 2020 but showed improvement in the fourth quarter as quarantine restrictions eased, the company said.

Its total store count as of end-december reached 2,157, which included 178 supermarkets, 16 hypermarkets, 70 minimarts, 49 department stores, 225 do-it-yourself stores, 472 convenience stores, 829 drugstores and 318 specialty stores. On top of this are 2,025 franchised stores of The Generics Pharmacy.