D&L Industries Inc. said Friday first-quarter net income dropped 24 percent year-on-year to P594 million on weak demand in the first two months of 2023.
D&L president and chief executive Alvin Lao said in a news briefing the weakness in demand was largely due to overstocking implemented by some customers last year because of the global supply chain problem.
Lao said with the logistics problem slowly starting to improve, customers are now using existing stocks.
He said the lingering effects of high inflation also affected overall demand. Volume of high margin specialty products and commodity went down by 5 percent and 20 percent, respectively.
Lao said, however, demand started to improve in March as sales were up 62 percent and 26 percent compared to earnings in January and February, respectively.
“While the first two months of the year were weaker-than-expected, we anticipate things to be much better moving forward as we started seeing volumes coming back in March,” Lao said.
“This year, our company is celebrating its 60th anniversary, and we are confident that the resilience and the ability to adapt to changing business landscape built over the years will allow us to continue to thrive despite various macroeconomic challenges,” Lao said.