SM Prime Holdings Inc., the Philippines’ largest integrated property company led by tycoon Henry Sy, said Monday net income expanded 15 percent in the first quarter to P7.6 billion from P6.6 billion a year ago, fueled by robust mall and residential businesses.
SM Prime said in a disclosure to the stock exchange first-quarter consolidated revenues grew 14 percent to P23.4 billion from P20.5 billion in the same period last year.
Operating income in the first three months also improved 16 percent year-on-year to P11.1 billion, the company said.
“The growing revenue contribution of our mall operations in the provinces and increasing reservation sales of our residential projects in Metro Manila drove our bottom line higher and kept us in line with our first-quarter target in 2018. Nevertheless, we plan to continue expanding in key cities all over the Philippines to sustain our growth targets over the next few years,” said SM Prime president Jeffrey Lim.
Mall revenues climbed 10 percent in the first three months to P13.9 billion, as the newly opened malls in 2016 and 2017 helped improve the company’s financial performance.
SM Prime said the malls’ operating income increased 11 percent to P7.8 billion in the three-month period, while operating margin was steady at 56 percent.
The company also maintained its 7 percent same-mall-sales growth in the first three months of the year.
SM Prime said that since the start of 2018, it already opened two malls”•SM Center Imus in Cavite and SM City Urdaneta Central in Pangasinan. Three more are slated to open this year, including SM City Telabastagan in Pampanga, SM City Legazpi in Albay and SM Center Ormoc in Leyte.
SM Prime’s residential arm SM Development Corp. also delivered strong performance in the first three months, with revenue growing 25 percent to P7.5 billion from P6 billion a year ago.
The group’s operating income surged 43 percent to P2.4 billion from P1.7 billion.
Reservation sales went up 20 percent in terms of sales value to P14.8 billion. Unit sales were almost flat at 3,894.
SM Prime’s other businesses”•office, hotels and conventions centers”•registered consolidated revenue growth of 8 percent in the first quarter to P2 billion.
