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Grocery chain operator Puregold Price Club Inc. grew its first quarter net profit by 16.8 percent year-on-year to P1.76 billion, bucking the earnings downturn seen by most companies, as consumers continued to buy essential goods during the lockdown of Luzon and other key regions.
Consolidated net margin for the period stood at 4.3 percent, Puregold said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Friday.
Puregold said its stores registered stronger-than-expected same store sales growth (SSSG) of 14.4 percent in the first quarter of 2020 while membership shopping S&R registered 5.1 percent SSSG during the same period.
“Our SSSG in this period is driven by higher consumer spending and pantry loading prior to the COVID quarantine as well as the low inflation environment in 2020,” the disclosure said.
Puregold’s consolidated net sales increased by 17.4 percent year-on-year to P40.95 billion in the first quarter, 77 percent of which was attributed to the Puregold stores network and 23 percent to S&R and S&R New York Style Pizza stores.
Income from operations grew by 15.4 percent year-on-year to P2.97 billion in the first quarter.
As of end March 2020, Puregold group had a total of 443 stores nationwide. These included 384 Puregold stores, 20 S&R membership shopping warehouse, and 39 S&R New York Style stores with a total net selling area of around 580,000 square meters.