Jollibee profit tops R6 billion in 2016; R14-B capex allotted

Jollibee Foods Corporation, the largest Asian restaurant company, reported a 24.6 percent improvement in unaudited consolidated attributable net income to R6.14 billion last year from the R4.93 billion earned in 2015.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the firm said system-wide sales, the total sales of both company-owned and franchised stores, grew 14.1 percent to R149.14 billion in 2016 from R130.73 billion in the previous year.

In the fourth quarter of 2016, system-wide sales also grew 14.1 percent to R41.38 billion from R36.26 billion in the same period in the previous year. This was driven by a 7 percent global store network expansion and same store sales growth of 7 percent.

“In 2016, we opened the most number of stores in JFC’s history. This was made possible by improving the return on investments on our stores and by increasing our organization’s capability to build and open more stores, in better locations and with better quality than ever before — on a worldwide basis,” said Jollibee Chief Executive Ernesto Tanmantiong.

He added that, “we also renovated 200 existing stores in the Philippines and 150 stores abroad. We are allotting R14 billion in capital expenditures in 2017, mainly for new store expansion and renovation (R7.6 billion) and commissary investments (R5.6 billion. We look forward to continued strong profitable growth in the years ahead in the Philippines and abroad.”

During the fourth quarter of last year, system-wide sales in the Philippines rose 14 percent while the foreign business grew 14.5 percent with China growing by 6 percent, US by 19.4 percent, and Southeast Asia and the Middle East by 33 percent.