Jollibee incurs P12 billion loss in H1

MANILA, Philippines — Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) incurred a net loss of P12 billion in the first half, a reversal of the P2.5 billion profit recorded in the same period last year.

In the second quarter alone, JFC’s net loss was P10 billion compared to a net income of P1 billion a year ago.

This as system-wide sales both from company-owned and franchised stores decreased 24.5 percent to P85.8 billion during the first half and by 48.4 percent to P30.7 billion in the second quarter due to quarantine restrictions imposed in many parts of the world as a result of the coronavirus.

JFC chief executive officer Ernesto Tanmantiong said the company’s latest results were expected.

“The business results were very bad, but in line with our forecasts. We are now focusing on rebuilding our business moving forward, along with implementing major cost improvement under our business transformation program,” he said.

“We expect sales and profit to improve over the next few months. Our business building effort include introducing exciting new products, launching new marketing campaigns, opening cloud kitchens, introducing improvement in our delivery systems and opening new stores at selected locations, particularly in North America, Vietnam, Malaysia and China,” Tanmantiong further said.

Moving forward, the company plans to open 338 stores worldwide this year.

“We expect sales and profit to increase significantly in 2021 to a point closer to the levels of 2019 and to grow at least at historical growth rate of 15 percent annually by 2022,” Tanmantiong said.

At the beginning of the second quarter, 50 percent of JFC Group’s stores worldwide were temporarily closed. By the end of the quarter, 88 percent of all stores were already open.

“However, most of the stores that were open relied heavily on delivery and take-out businesses, while practically all dine-in operations were either still closed or had low level of sales volume. Revenues decreased by 46.6 percent to P23.3 billion for the quarter versus year ago,” JFC said.