MANILA, Philippines — Shakey’s Pizza Asia Ventures Inc., a full-service restaurant chain and food service group in the Philippines, sees both its bottomline and topline growing by at least 20 percent this year as the economy continues to reopen.
The positive outlook is also anchored on the company’s expansion across its different brands, according to its chairman Christopher Po.
“We are counting a lot on the reopening of the market and expansion. We see better than 20 percent topline and bottomline growth for the full year,” Po said in a press conference yesterday after the company’s annual stockholders meeting.
Shakey’s president Vicente Gregorio said that while inflation remains a problem, the company continues to implement operational efficiencies to reduce cost and price pressures.
“We are bullish on our Philippine business but inflation remains a challenge,” he said.
In terms of expansion, Gregorio said there’s room to expand in Visayas and Mindanao.
Po said that there are areas outside of Metro Manila that have emerged as potentially strong markets for Shakey’s brands because of remote work arrangements wherein consumers have relocated to some areas in Luzon outside Metro Manila as they service their employers abroad.
In his report during the stockholders meeting, Gregorio said Shakey’s now enjoys two consecutive years of double-digit growth in topline and bottom line.
Shakey’s reported a net income of P874 million last year, already breaching the pre-pandemic 2019 income of P865 million.
The company recorded systemwide sales of P14.1 billion, doubling from 2021 and exceeding pre-pandemic sales by 36 percent.
“We entered the pandemic with one major brand – Shakey’s, and one emerging brand, Peri-Peri. We emerged from the pandemic with a multi-brand portfolio of Wow Brands: Shakey’s, Potato Corner, Peri-Peri Charcoal Chicken and Saucebar, and incubating brands, R&B Milk Tea and Project Pie. True to our vision, we continued to build our roster by investing in brands that were strategically aligned with our ambition, segments where we have the right to win, and businesses that prove to be accretive to ours. Each of these brands has its own unique role in our portfolio,” Gregorio said.
As of the end of 2022, Shakey’s had a global network of 347 stores for casual dining and emerging brands, plus the 1,425 outlets of its new brand, Potato Corner.
Peri-Peri opened 16 new stores last year.
Since it was acquired in 2019, the charcoal chicken chain has tripled its network to 68 stores.
R&B has likewise begun launching more stores, ending 2022 with nine independent stores.
Potato Corner likewise accelerated its store expansion. Its global store network increased by 153 outlets last year.
It opened in the UK, UAE, China, Thailand, and Singapore among others, while Shakey’s opened stores in Singapore and Dubai.