THE net income of Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) grew by 18 percent in the first quarter of 2007 over the net income in the same period last year.
The growth was driven by a 14.8 percent rise in its revenues and by a continued improvement in its profit margins.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the company said its system wide sales, a measure of all sales to consumers both from company-owned and franchised stores, grew by 13 percent over the first quarter of 2006.
JFC chairman and chief executive officer Tony Tan Caktiong said that JFC’s businesses in the country and abroad continued to perform strongly in the first quarter.
“Overall, our Philippine stores achieved growth rates that were higher than in the past two years. We attribute the strong growth to a recovery in consumer spending behind an improving economy and to our product launches and marketing campaigns. In our international business, store sales continued to rise remarkably in practically every foreign market and across al our brands. The consumers in our markets aboard are clearly responding to our continued effort in improving our products, particularly in product tastes and our services,” he said.
Profits
JFC chief finance officer Ysmale Baysa said that operating profit before tax grew by 22.3 percent in the first quarter of 2007 versus the same period in 2006.
JFC opened 24 stores in the first quarter this year.
The 23 stores are in the country—11 Jollibee outlets, seven Chowking outlets, three Greenwich outlets and two Red Ribbon outlets—and one in Brunei. (CYR)
