Beating the pandemic odds

Written by: Tina Arceo-Dumlao

Challenges are an inextricable part of the business landscape and corporations are judged according to how well—or how badly—they respond to them.

And by far the biggest challenge that confronted local companies and the executives who lead them in recent years is the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the government to impose varying levels of mobility restrictions to contain the disease spread. 

These painful but necessary steps consequently froze economic activity for long stretches and shuttered thousands of micro, small and medium enterprises. 

Yet despite the unprecedented public health and economic crises caused by the virus outbreak—the worst catastrophe to hit the Philippines since World War II—a number have managed to not just survive, but even thrive. 

Some of those companies that were able to recalibrate and redirect their operations, allowing them to grow and still post a profit even at the height of the pandemic, are listed in this Growth Champions 2022 report, the second collaboration between the Philippine Daily Inquirer and international market research firm Statista.

This report is part of the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s thrust to champion Filipinos and tell their story, this time of growth despite adversity. 

Methodology The Philippines’ Growth Champions 2022

The Philippines’ Growth Champions 2022 is a list of the Top 25 companies in the Philippines that have achieved the highest percentage growth in revenues between 2017 and 2020.

Application phase

The project was advertised online and in print, allowing all eligible companies to register via the website created by Statista and the Philippine Daily Inquirer. In addition, through research in company databases and other public sources Statista has identified hundreds of companies in the Philippines as potential candidates for the growth ranking. These companies were invited to participate in the competition by email, Linkedin and telephone.

The application phase ran from 1st August 2021 to 31 January  2022. The submitted revenue figures had to be certified by the CFO, CEO or a member of the Executive Committee of the company.

Criteria for inclusion in the list

To be included in the list of the Philippines’ Growth Champions, a company had to meet the following criteria:

- Revenue of at least ₱5,000,000 generated in 2017

- Revenue of at least ₱30,000,000 generated in 2020

- The company is independent (acts largely independently in its business decisions and does not receive significant sales from parent or related companies)

- The company is headquartered in the Philippines

- The revenue growth between 2017 and 2020 was primarily organic (i.e. "internally" stimulated)

Calculation of CAGR

The calculation of company growth rates is based on the revenue figures submitted by the companies.

The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) was calculated as follows:

Evaluation and quality assurance

All data reported by the companies was processed and checked by Statista. Missing data entries (employee numbers, address data, etc.) were researched in detail. Companies that did not fulfill the criteria for inclusion in the ranking were deleted.

Disclaimer

The ranking of the Philippines’ Growth Champions was created through a complex procedure. Although the search was very extensive, the ranking does not claim to be complete, as some companies did not want to make their figures public or did not participate for other reasons.

Special Report released in Philippine Daily Inquirer

Below are the images from the 8-pager supplement of Philippine Daily Inquirer, released on March 11, 2022.