Jollibee Foods Corp., the country’s largest fast food company, reported net income falling more than 10 percent in the first quarter to P2.06 billion from last year’s P2.31 billion even though its consolidated revenues actually increased more than 28 percent.
Revenues reached P55.09 billion, 28 percent higher than last year’s P42.85 billion, while system wide sales, a measure of all sales to consumers both from company owned and franchised stores, rose 31 percent to P78.63 billion from the previous P59.97 billion.
“Our first-quarter financial results reflected continued strong momentum, delivering another quarter of strong topline and operating income growth. System wide sales and revenues for the quarter rose by 31 percent and 28.5 percent, respectively while operating profit grew by 80.9 percent,” Jollibee CEO Ernesto Tanmantiong said.
Same store sales grew by 22 percent with the Philippine business growing by 31 percent and the international businesses by 8.8 percent.
“We continued to invest in new stores that will help drive sustainable value for our shareholders. We opened 111 stores and grew store network by 4.7 percent versus prior year. We are on track to achieving our 550-600 new store target for 2023,” Tanmantiong said.
“We delivered strong operating profit growth despite continued macro challenges. We remain focused on navigating through these uncertainties and are confident in our ability to deliver another year of strong growth,” he said.
First quarter systemwide sales in the Philippines grew by 36 percent and international grew by 23 percent with China, North America and Europe and the Middle East each growing 20 percent.
First quarter same store sales in the Philippines grew by 31 percent driven by improvement in volume or transaction count and increase in average check.
“We remain focused on continued improvement in our business fundamentals, which resulted in sustained gross profit margin expansion and significant growth in underlying profit performance. We are confident in our ability to execute our strategies and deliver our financial goals for 2023,” Jollibee CFO Richard Shin said.