DoubleDragon, MerryMart booked higher profits in H1 2023

MANILA  -The property and retail business led by tycoon Edgar “Injap” Sia II booked higher earnings during the first six months of the year on resilient leasing income and consumer spending.

DoubleDragon Corp., Sia’s property venture with fast-food billionaire Tony Tan Caktiong, said net income from January to June jumped 33 percent to P1.6 billion versus the same period last year .

Sia’s listed supermarket operator, MerryMart Consumer Corp. (MM), booked profits of P40.24 million, up 24.8 percent during the same period.

DoubleDragon, which also owns the fast-growing Hotel101 condotel chain, reported robust revenue growth as it exceeded a previous target to reach one million square meters of leasable space.

Revenues during the first semester reached nearly P4 billion, up 15.6 percent. The company’s leasable space stood at about 1.3 million sqm while total assets as of June 30 this year amounted to P163 billion.

“We are grateful for the experience and learnings the past eight years has taught us and we are excited as today is actually 180 days to the Year of the Dragon, which we believe to be an auspicious and monumental year for DoubleDragon Corp,” Sia, the chair and CEO of DoubleDragon, said in a statement on Tuesday.

In a separate filing on Tuesday, MerryMart said revenues from January to June this year rose 29 percent to P3.71 billion while total assets amounted to P11.53 billion, up nearly 37 percent.

MerryMart’s stop formats include MerryMart Express, MerryMart Market, MerryMart Grocery, and MerryMart Wholesale.

The company also underscored the “exponential” growth of sales after it rolled out its new app.

“To date, there are already close to 170,000 registered users and we believe that MM Wholesale is the future of wholesaling, with its state of the art fully integrated App giving customers live inventory of over 8,000 grocery products,” MerryMart said.

Sia noted a majority of their customers were sari-sari store owners who are seeking to upgrade to mini grocery stores or “mini-marts”.

“In addition to assisting them transform their sari-sari stores to become mini-marts, the program includes a financial literacy and other business educational courses so that the store owners can enhance their skills to better manage and operate their mini-marts which is expected to significantly increase their overall household income,” Sia said.

“Since July 2023, the Ka- Barangay Mini-Mart program is now processing more than 1,000 sari-sari store owners. We are truly fortunate that we are able to grow our business simultaneous to creating a meaningful positive social impact in the various communities we serve,” he added.