Leading cement firm Holcim Philippines saw a 25-percent drop in its first semester net profit to P1.6 billion due to stiff competition and higher operating costs.
In the second quarter alone, Holcim’s net profit fell by about a quarter year-on-year to P868.9 million. However, second quarter net sales improved by 18.5 percent year-on-year to P10.1 billion.
“Our second quarter performance showed encouraging trends which translated into significant sales growth on the back of strong building activity. However, rising costs of fuel, power and distribution combined with the peso’s depreciation against the US dollar and tighter competition continued to impact our business performance in the second quarter,” Holcim president John Still said in a statement.
“Still, there are many opportunities for our business given the robust building activity in the country, and this is seen in our sales growth in the second quarter,” he added.
In the first semester, net sales rose 8 percent to P18.8 billion on higher sales volumes of cement and aggregates.
In the statement, Holcim said improved productivity had resulted in higher cement production across all plants. It has cement manufacturing facilities in La Union, Bulacan, Misamis Oriental and Davao, technical support facilities for building solutions, and aggregates and dry mix businesses.
Ongoing projects to raise its cement production capacity to 12 million metric tons from 10 million (MT) are set for completion in the first half of 2019.—DORIS DUMLAO-ABADILLA