Wilcon Depot profit thins

MANILA, Philippines — Wilcon Depot Inc., the country’s leading home improvement and construction supplies retailer, said its nine-month income declined by 7.9 percent to P2.726 billion from a year ago.

Wilcon attributed the drop to the increase in operating expenses, which, however, was partly offset by the increase in total net sales on a quarter-on-quarter basis.

“Total net sales grew quarter-on-quarter, which is a welcome progress but as expected, the higher base resulted in a decline in comparative sales. Net sales also did not grow enough to cover the increase in operating expenses, over 50 percent of which was contributed by expansion related expenses. Overall demand for major home improvement and finishing construction supply continues to be soft for retail but resumption of projects by major developers increased project sales by 75.5 percent,” said Lorraine Belo-Cincochan, president and CEO of Wilcon Depot.

Moving forward, she said, the company continues to pursue its network expansion plan with a target to have 10 new stores by the end of the year.

“We have opened seven so far with six opened in the last three quarters. We are expecting to finish the year with 10 new stores, barring any major delays in construction, and as such we are expecting new stores’ operating expense drag on net income to persist until the fourth quarter,” Belo-Cincochan said.

Wilcon targets to have 100 stores nationwide by 2024 or a year earlier than
initially planned.

“We are willing to make these short-term sacrifices as we want to be well-positioned to capture more market share in this still high potential, highly fragmented market. We remain customer-focused, always finding ways to improve our service delivery and agility to adjust to the changing consumer preferences with the aid of technology so that we can continue to give excellent value to our customers even as we expand our market reach,” Belo-Cincochan said.