Meralco sees 1% growth in ’11 sales

Manila Electric Co., the country’s biggest power distributor, expects to post a modest 1-percent growth in sales volume this year after a banner year in 2010, which saw an unprecedented record increase in sales over the past decade.

Oscar S. Reyes, senior executive vice president and chief operating officer of Meralco, said the growth, while relatively smaller than last year’s, was still “very good because you’re talking about record sales volumes.”

“This year is tracking the record year of 2010. Last year, we increased by 10 percent over 2009 and that’s way above the normal annual increase over the last 10 years, which are in the order of about 2.2 to 2.5 percent,” Reyes explained.

“So we were concerned as to whether sales this year will be below last year. But we’re [tracking] flat to marginally positive over the volume of last year, way above 2009,” he added.

When compared to 2009, this year’s sales volume figures would be 11 percent higher, according to Reyes.

“It would be hard to replicate the [record] growth of 2010 because of a number of factors. One, this year is not an election year, so there is no election spending and related activities. No. 2, this year has been a relatively much cooler year than last year, and No. 3, we’ve had the impact of typhoons like Typhoon Pedring, which inundated certain areas, especially in Bulacan, for an extended period of time,” Reyes explained.