Figaro Coffee Group Inc. projects making Angels Pizza among the country’s major pizza makers in five years as it commits to put in more capital into the chain.
Justin T. Liu, company chairman, said at least 300 more branches will be built to position the chain in the highly competitive market.
“Its very difficult to say but hopefully within the next five years. It’s very challenging because our competitors are larger than us, heavier capitalized than us,” Liu told reporters of the plan to become the number one player in customer preference and store count.
Angel’s Pizza is strong at the lower segment of the market at the moment, he acknowledged.
According to him, the brand’s direct competitors are Shakey’s Pizza, S&R, Pizza Hut.
“But we’re being compared to Greenwich a lot in the provinces now. That’s why we need to evolve our menu and pricing points,” Liu said.
The cited players, however, have larger footprint than Angel’s Pizza’s store count of 124 as of end-2023 plus 70 to 80 more stores to be launched this year across its various brands from Figaro Coffee to Tien Ma’s Taiwanese stores.
Figaro is setting aside P1 billion as capital expenditures for the stores, half of which will still be in Luzon and the rest in the Visayas and Mindanao.
“Our funding is still quite strong because we have investments from Monde (Nissin Corp.), a bit of bank loans and we also have internal cash flow. It’s very good because our profitability is still quite strong,” Liu said.
Around 70 percent of Figaro’s revenue comes from Angel’s Pizza.
Liu said the company will continue to pour more capital on the pizza brand since that’s where its sales and profit and its growth potential come from.
“Coffee is a very competitive industry and very low barrier to entry. Anyone can just open a coffee shop and you’re seeing people shying away from large coffee brands. They want more of the specialty” kind Liu said.
“So we’re allocating more of the capital to where the growth is. That’s why we’re also open to creating new brands like Koobideh.
“Angel’s expansion in the provinces can become a base for the future expansion of the other brands because Angel’s will also need commissary facilities, warehouses. And these can be used also for the future expansion of the other brands,” he said.
In its third-quarter performance ended March this year, the company reported income growing 6 percent to P387.45 million from the previous year’s P364.47 million.
Revenue over a nine-month period grew 32 percent to P4.07 billion from previous year’s P3.07 billion.
In third quarter alone, the company earned P104.52 million, 5 percent higher than prior year’s P99.36 million.
Revenue totaled P1.31 billion, 27 percent higher than last year’s P1.03 billion. Of the amount, P902.62 million came from Angel’s Pizza or 68 percent, Figaro Coffee with another P54.25 million and Tien Ma’s with P42.3 million.
