Wilcon Depot Inc. said first quarter profit hit P740 million, down 23.1 percent from last year’s P962 million.
Sales dropped 2.5 percent to P8.31 billion from P8.53 billion.
“The decline is mainly attributed to the drop in net sales in March as the long Easter holidays shifted from April last year to March this year,” the company told regulators.
“For the first two months of the year, net sales were up 2.3 percent. Comparable sales slid 7.3 percent for the quarter but from January to February comparable sales declined only by 2.6 percent,” it added.
The company opened one depot in Mindanao and two DIW format stores in Mindanao and in Luzon for the period.
The depots posted sales of P7.97 billion, down 4 percent from last year’s P8.3 billion, with same store sales growth declining 7.9 percent.
The Do It Wilcon (DIW) format stores posted sales of P232 million, up 37.2 percent from P169.1 million, though same-store sales contracted 10.9 percent.
“For both formats, Metro Manila stores recorded the highest decline as these stores also registered the highest same store sales growth in the first quarter of 2023,” Wilcon said.
Project sales stood at P105 million, up 108.1 percent.
“Our earnings for the first quarter may have declined 23 percent year-on-year, but it’s still higher than any quarter’s earnings prior to 2022. We are looking forward to better results in the future as we work towards improving our performance to reach or even beat our 2022 results. This quarter’s performance was driven primarily by the considerable year-on-year drop in March sales because of the Easter holidays falling in March this year and exacerbated by the fact that March last year was our highest grossing month. Our April year-on-year sales growth reversed the decline in March and we are hoping that our improving average daily sales will be sustained from here on,” said Lorraine Belo-Cincochan, Wilcon president.
“We are still on track to reach our 100-store target by the end of the year. We have opened three new stores during the quarter, two DIW format branches and one depot,” she added.
