MANILA, Philippines—Leading online stockbrokerage CitisecOnline (COL) hiked its first-quarter net profit by 27 percent year on year to P82 million as it surpassed revenue targets and substantially expanded customer base.
Consolidated revenues jumped by 46 percent in the first three months to P152 million from a year ago, led by the company’s Philippine operations. The resulting bottom line, the company reported, was thus driven predominantly by commissions generated from customer activity.
COL president Conrado Bate attributed the increased customer activity to the improved outlook on the economy, which in turn is currently benefiting from investment-led economic growth and a low interest rate environment.
“We continue to see the substantial development and growth in our Philippine operations as shown by our customer assets doubled year on year to over P12 billion from P5.7 billion,” Bate said.
Philippine operations continue to increase its contribution to overall company revenues, with its 81-percent share now dwarfing the revenue share of a wholly owned overseas brokerage subsidiary CitisecOnline.com HK Ltd.
Furthermore, COL’s overall customer base hit the 18,000-mark, growing by a hefty 20 percent in the first quarter alone as it continued to generate new customers from referrals from its loyal customers as well as seminar attendees from its free weekly seminars.
“We are very happy to see our own customers bring in their friends and family to invest with us and we see this as a good measure of their satisfaction with our products and services. Our seminars continue to be filled with a good mix of investors eager to learn about the basics of stock market investing as well as how to manage risk and maximize profits through timing or cost averaging,” said analyst Juanis Barredo, who heads COL’s investor seminar series.
COL holds free weekly seminars on the stock market and on its “Easy Investment Program,” which focuses on a gradual investment strategy in the stock market.
The online brokerage also remained the market leader in the Philippine Stock Exchange in terms of volume, accounting for almost a fifth of all transactions executed at the local brokerage.