Jollibee net income down 10.4% to P4.8B

Homegrown fast-food giant Jollibee Foods Corp. saw a 10.4-percent decline in net profit last year to P4.81 billion as the company embarked on a record global expansion program and debuted into the mainstream American hamburger market.

JFC’s net profit last year was weighed down by P1 billion in “short-term costs” associated with information technology upgrade, the increase in network development, the acquisition of US hamburger chain Smashburger as well as additional supply chain and logistic costs needed to support growth, JFC chief finance officer Ysmael Baysa explained in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange.

For the fourth quarter of 2015 alone, net profit attributable to equity holders of parent declined by 44.9 percent year-on-year to P948 million.

But excluding the impact of extraordinary costs, JFC estimated that net income would have increased by 8.2 percent for the fourth quarter year-on-year and by 7.8 percent for the full year. It estimated that operating income would have grown by 20.9 percent year-on-year in the fourth quarter and by 4.8 percent for the entire year, excluding extraordinary cost items.

System-wide sales for the fourth quarter grew by 11.8 percent to P36.26 billion, in turn driven by 6- to 7-percent growth in same stores sales—or excluding the impact of newly opened stores to allow better comparison.

For the whole year, sales rose by 10.9 percent to P130.73 billion. Full-year revenues went up by 11.2 percent to P100.78 billion.

The group opened 303 new stores last year: 246 in the Philippines, 39 in China, one in the United States and 17 in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. A total of 57 stores were opened overseas—the most opened in JFC’s history.

“The new stores are performing well, particularly those in the Philippines, exceeding their target sales and return on investments.  These are marks of the strong health of the brands and of JFC’s increased organization capability,” JFC president Ernesto Tanmantiong said.  Doris Dumlao-Abadilla