Jollibee posts P10-B Q2 loss
At the beginning of the quarter, 50 percent of JFC Group’s stores worldwide were temporarily closed
Premiere fastfood chain Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) nosedived to a P10.2 billion loss in the second quarter from a P1.04 billion profit a year ago as it suffered from strict restrictions in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
System-wide sales decreased by 48.4 percent to P30.7 billion in the second quarter compared to a year ago as the business felt the full impact of the community quarantine period.
At the beginning of the quarter, 50 percent of JFC Group’s stores worldwide were temporarily closed. By the end of the quarter, 88 percent of all stores were already open.
However, most of the stores that were open relied heavily on delivery and take-out businesses while practically all dine-in operations were either still closed or had low level of sales volume.
Within expectations
“The business results were very bad but in line with our forecasts. We are now focusing on rebuilding our business moving forward along with implementing major cost improvement under our Business Transformation program,” JFC Chief Executive Officer Ernesto Tanmantiong said.
He added sales and profit are expected to improve over the next few months. "Our business building effort includes introducing exciting new products, launching new marketing campaigns, opening cloud kitchens, introducing improvement in our delivery systems and opening new stores at selected locations particularly in North America, Vietnam, Malaysia and China," he noted.
Expansion continues
Tanmantiong revealed JFC will pursue its plan to open a total of 338 stores worldwide this year.
"We expect sales and profit to increase significantly in 2021 to a point closer to the levels of 2019 and to grow at least at historical growth rate of 15 percent annually by 2022,” he indicated.
As JFC’s stores resumed operations all over the world, the speed of recovery in same store sales varied across different countries and territories.
In April, global same store sales declined by 47 percent with the local business declining by 57 percent; China, negative 37 percent; North America, negative 25 percent and Europe, Middle East and Asia (EMEAA), negative 45 percent.