7-Eleven PH nets P648M

A 7-Eleven store Photo by LEO M. SABANGAN II.

The country’s leading convenience store operator Philippine Seven Corp. (PSC) chalked up P648.3 million in net profit in the first nine months, 0.8 percent year-on-year, as same-store sales rebounded in the third quarter.

PSC, the local licensee of the 7-Eleven convenience store chain, grew net income by 18 percent year-on-year to P201.9 million in the third quarter alone.

Same store sales grew by 4.1 percent year-on-year during the third quarter, improving from the decline of 4.4 percent in the first quarter and the modest growth of 1.2 percent seen in the second quarter of the year. This brought year-to-date same-store sales growth to 0.1 percent, despite coming from a high base in 2016, during which consumer spending got an extraordinary boost from the presidential election campaign.

System-wide retail sales amounted to P27.2 billion for the nine-month period, up by 18.1 percent year-on-year, due to the improvement in same-store sales and higher number of operating stores.

Store count by end-September reached 2,172, up by 332 or 18 percent from the same period last year. New stores added since the start of the year summed up to 199 against 22 closures.

Broken down per major-island, the number of 7-Eleven stores in Luzon was pegged at 1,739 (856 of which are in Metro Manila), Visayas at 288 and Mindanao with 145.

Franchisees control 54 percent of all stores while the remaining 46 percent are corporate-owned.

“The company remains on track when it comes to pursuing its store expansion program. It continues to invest in opening new stores in existing and new markets even if competition had slowed down. The capacity building expenditures on logistics assets and organizational capability have produced favorable results,” PSC said.

“The focus of the organization going forward will be on increasing sales per store. There are various programs lined up covering expanding merchandise assortment and launching of new food and beverage items to serve as differentiation compared with other channels. The e-commerce business was launched to take advantage of growing customer preference towards innovation and convenience,” it added.

For this year, the PSC has set a capital expenditure budget of at least P3.5 billion to support its store expansion strategy. Bulk of the amount is allocated to new store opening, store renovation and equipment acquisition.