Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 12) — Two publicly-listed food chains Jollibee Foods Corp. and Shakey’s Pizza Asia Ventures still suffered lower sales in the first quarter as continued lockdowns dampened recovery.
The companies reported on Wednesday their financial performance in separate disclosures to the Philippine Stock Exchange.
Shakey’s said its net income dropped 75% to ₱29 million in the January to March period against the ₱114 million posted a year earlier.
System-wide sales also decreased 28% to ₱1.67 billion compared to the previous ₱2.30 billion. However, it noted that the figure represented a 500-basis point improvement from the last quarter of 2020.
Although EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) was down to ₱240 million, or 31% lower than the ₱347 million recorded in end-March of 2020, the amount was 6% higher than 2020’s fourth quarter.
“The ongoing COVID-19 crisis continues to weigh heavily on the restaurant industry, with many consumers challenged by the macroeconomic conditions and/or opting simply to stay home amidst the fear of contracting the virus,” Vicente Gregorio, PIZZA president and chief executive officer, was quoted as saying in the filing.
“The latter part of this quarter also saw the re-imposition of stricter measures to curtail dine-in, disrupting the part of our business which was experiencing a relatively good trajectory before then,” he added.
Jollibee, on the other hand, swung back to profitability in the first quarter, recording ₱49 million net income from ₱1.95 billion losses in 2020 as coronavirus restrictions pulled down business sales.
Its CEO Ernesto Tanmantiong said that the group’s system-wide sales fell 13.4% to ₱47.78 billion versus the previous ₱55.15 billion with its Philippine operations still leading the charge despite facing “challenges… due to continued restrictions related to the pandemic”.
Sales from international business gained a notch or 1.3%, while its local operations declined 21.3%.
“Most of our businesses abroad are reaching sales at pre-pandemic level,” he said.
Tanmantiong noted sales in China, North America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia, and Vietnam were “already equal to or slightly higher than those in March 2019.”
