MANILA, Philippines - Homegrown fastfood giant Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) said its net profit rose 12.7 percent last year to P5.3 billion as sales from its restaurant network sustained double-digit growth.
In the fourth quarter alone, JFC’s net earnings went up 5.1 percent to P1.63 billion.
JFC said systemwide sales, a measure of consumer sales from company-owned and franchised stores, grew 13.3 percent to P117.9 billion last year with the Philippine business expanding 13.2 percent and overseas operations improving 13.7 percent.
The growth was driven by an eight percent rise in same-store sales, which pertain to restaurants that were already open for at least 15 months, as well as a 5.4 percent hike in the number of operating stores.
JFC chief financial officer Ysmael Baysa said net income would have grown 15.8 percent in 2014 were it not for escalating material costs that pushed general and administrative expenses up a hefty 19.5 percent.
“The raw material cost increases in 2014, averaging 5.4 percent, brought pressure on our profit margins. We made important price adjustments and improved our store and manufacturing expenses during the year. We are now very close to fully covering these cost increases and look forward to the full recovery and improvement in gross profit margins in 2015 through lower cost of energy and more stable raw material prices,” Baysa said.
“We view these expense increases as key investments for long term growth and expect these rising overhead costs to be more than offset by higher rates of business growth in the years ahead,” Baysa added.
The Jollibee Group opened a total 234 new stores to end 2014 with a total branch network of 2,913 stores worldwide.
As of end-December last year, JFC had a total of 2,301 restaurants spread across the country – Jollibee 858, Chowking 410, Greenwich 211, Red Ribbon 323, Mang Inasal 456, and Burger King 43.