Wilcon Depot Inc., the country’s leading home improvement and finishing construction supply retailer, said Friday first-quarter net income jumped 13.1 percent to P962 million from P851 million in the same period last year even as expenses grew faster than revenues.
First-quarter revenues climbed 11.4 percent to P8.53 billion from P7.65 billion on strong performance of newly-opened stores. Operating expenses also accelerated by 22.3 percent to P2.16 billion.
“Our first-quarter performance reflected the impact of the base effect as our sales growth tapered off even as our average daily sales increased month-on-month for the quarter,” Wilcon chief executive Lorraine Belo-Cincochan said.
Sales from depot-format stores, which comprise 97.4 percent of total net sales, grew 11.4 percent to P8.03 billion as same-store sales growth increased 3.3 percent.
Sales from smaller format store also increased 22.6 percent to P169 million due to contribution from newly-opened stores.
Belo-Cincochan said given the company’s first quarter performance, the group is poised to exceed its target new store openings this year from 8 to 11.
“This is also so we can proceed with the rationalization of a couple of our bottom-dwelling Home Essentials branches while staying on track to meet our 100-store target by next year,” Belo-Cincochan said.
Wilcon opened two new depots in the first quarter. It also recently opened a Home Essentials branch in Mindanao.
